Fortieth childhood

It’s been a while since I blogged, so perhaps you’re wondering what I’ve been up to. Or perhaps you’re not, but I’m going to tell you anyway. I’ve been enjoying my fortieth childhood. In case you’re wondering how I picked fortieth, I’ll tell you that this is a nod to the Bible. Whenever something is long but nobody remembers how long, the authors tend to say “40” for that period. That works for me!

“Childhood” is a loaded word when you’re older, so let’s clarify up front that this is NOT an announcement that I have Alzheimer’s. Sometimes recalling words takes a bit longer than it used to, but I blame this on trying to remember words in Spanish and in English. (That’s another blog post.) Instead, I’m following advice given by Gretchen Rubin, the author of The Happiness Project and other similar books about finding joy in life. She spoke at a conference I attended many years ago, and she discussed how she looked at what made her happy in her childhood to see whether they could make her happy as an adult. That seemed reasonable to me, and I decided to pick up at least one activity that made me happy as a kid. And following that advice has become quite a part of my everyday life.

Of course some childhood joys have already endured. As a kid and an adult, reading has always been my main pastime, and I especially love mysteries. Carolyn Keene of Nancy Drew fame and Margaret Sutton of the underrated Judy Bolton series may not grace my bookshelves any more, but writers like Dorothy Sayers, Agatha Christie, Anne Cleeland, Jenn McKinlay, and Emma Lathen certainly do. And I still love cats, movies, and long bubble baths, too. But some of my kid activities are no longer available, appealing, or both – for example, watching The Jetsons, playing Barbies, and avoiding my brother. I’ll leave you to decide which fits in the “available” versus “appealing” category.

But one thing I did love as a kid was hidden picture puzzles, and the only source of those was Highlights magazine. Sadly, my parents refused to subscribe, I guess on the theory that we could make do with Time, TV Guide, and Reader’s Digest. So I had to (weirdly) look forward to going to the dentist, crossing my fingers that some jerk kid hadn’t already circled all of the objects on the hidden pictures game. Alas, undefiled pages were rarer than hen’s teeth – teeth seeming a good referent for a visit to the dentist – and I remember vowing that when I grew up, I wouldn’t let my children mark up a shared copy of Highlights for love or money.

Fast forward six decades and thirty-nine childhoods, and here we are in the internet age – complete with games that offer a seemingly infinite number of hidden picture pages. And trust me, I’m taking full advantage of that fact. My favorite game is Seeker’s Notes, which contains a thoroughly ridiculous plot line about a cursed city but which offers up a new location to search every month. From the Chateau to the Bioreserve to the Diviner’s Tent to the Railroad Station, I’ve searched for items such as shoes, doves, hairbrushes, kangaroos, harps, suitcases, garden gnomes, lawn mowers, and…you get the idea. Poor Mark finds some of my game-related muttering very confusing; he probably never thought he’d hear his bride staring at an iPad screen and repeating “Where in the world is that yak saddle?” under her breath.

So playing a silly game that makes me ridiculously happy is part of what I’ve been up to. I hope that you’re finding joy in your life as well. If not, or if you’d like to add a bit more happiness to your life, try looking back several childhoods ago and see if there’s a memory that can respark a passion. And if that involves hidden items in elaborate pictures, have I got a recommendation for you!