Childish Sophisticate

I was thinking today, that I am in a morphing, transitory state that I can best term a "woman-child". A phenomenon akin to adolescence, only it's a state of awkward balance between all three jurisdictions of childhood, teenhood, and this mysterious circle of adulthood. My body has blossomed in inductance into the sensual realm of womanhood - a state I picture as a world of pressed flowers, expensive perfumes, lipstick marks on coffee cups, reading the paper in the morning, and grocery shopping with a list. My mind has been opened by its years of living and its intellectual endeavors and by an ever-increasing knowledge and despair of a world and its struggles. And yet there exists a side of me that steadfastly resists "growing up", an impish side that will not quite accept the realities crowned by adulthood, a playful bantering side that lives still in a child's mind, hopes and dreams with a fervency foolish to many adults.

It is a gangly stage, striding both boats and dreaming that I can tread them forever. But for now I refuse to relinquish the five, ten, and fourteen-year old mes laughing and dreaming inside, while the twenty-three year old me faces the world with a complacent and porcelain mask. This picture for me (my dining chair) aptly captures this curious duality, an elegant black chair occupied by a cartoonish, rectangular stuffed cow.