On being seven.

Kicky is turning seven next week, and I am overwhelmed. Because I remember seven.


(Me, at seven.)

I remember seven better than twenty-seven. I lived in Concord, Vermont. I had a cat named Boogie. I liked to play "Love Boat" and "Charlie's Angels" in the yard with my neighbors, Chris and Angie. I watched "Happy Days" on Tuesdays and "Donny and Marie" every Friday night. I loved Orange Posicles and thought I might grow up to be a gymnast. For fun, I threw my Barbies up on the roof and watched them roll off. I liked to put pennies on the railroad tracks and get the hot, flattened remains after the trains had passed. I believed that notes in bottles would reach the destinations I intended. I was in the second grade, and I wrote my first short story during recess. I got the wind knocked out of me when I fell off the monkey bars, and I had a crush on Sean Cassidy. We adopted my sister the fall that I was seven. I was a devil for Halloween. Anyway, the point is (besides totally dating myself), this is a year that she will remember. And that is wild.