Once Upon A Time (sharing a light-hearted Monday morning piece I wrote)
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ONCE UPON A TIME
By Al Garcia
I remember when I was a kid and listen in utter rapture to stories that transported me to far-off and magical places. To times of long ago, with people wearing exotic clothes and speaking in words that fueled my mind and ignited by imagination. And all the stories began with the utterance of the same words, “Once upon a time.”
How wonderous were the words I heard. To be in make-believe places and feel the wind and the rain and the sun. To imagine the fragrance of the flowers along the yellow brick road. To feel the sensation of flying on a magical carpet across the sky. To experience the bond and the warmth of laying on the jungle floor with a baby tiger nestled to your chest, and feeling safe, secure and part of all that is around you. Once upon a time I felt and saw and heard the magic of my childhood. And I was content and waiting to grow up and experience for myself this enchanted place called Once Upon A Time.
And then one day, without much fanfare, pomp or circumstance, I found myself to be a young man. My mind now filled with thoughts, ideas, notions and emotions. My world of make-believe and magical flying carpets tucked away somewhere with my other childish things. I had traveled through the looking glass and here I was, alone and bewildered by it all, unlike the times I felt safe, secure and part of all that surrounded me. Growing up was hard to do. Harder still was recalling that once upon a time I had believed in the magic of my childhood.
There comes a time when childish dreams and fantasies must be discarded and cast into the pyre of time, to be consumed and finally devoured by the passing seasons of our lives. How sweet the memories that linger and remain, despite time’s endeavor to erase that special place where once upon a time I used to live.
Oh, how I long to live again in a place that once upon a time belonged to me, and only me. You see, although the seasons have come and gone and left behind only a remnant of who I used to be, I kept hidden inside of me in a place where time could never find, a piece of my childhood and of childish dreams and fantasies. And on rainy days or days when sadness overcomes my heart and soul, I dig deep inside of me and think about those days of make-believe. And it is then I think again about once upon a time.
And it is then that I again begin to feel young again, and I sense the magic that once enabled me to smell the flowers along the yellow brick road, and the sensation of flying on a magic carpet through the sky. I am as young as I feel and as young as I want to be. For I know that one day soon, someone will think of me and say, I remember he lived, once upon a time.
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