HongKong/Vancouver

Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far they can go. — T. S. Eliot

Sunday, February 20, 2022

The most perfect moment of my life



I read a lot as a child, starting one book as I finished the last. My whole world was reading books. Heck, it was my whole universe too – because that part of island was all I needed, and to be honest it was all I ever wanted. 

I was about six years old when a professional photographer took this photo in the school yard on my first day of school. My official day of learning to read. The three adults at the back of the photo were my great aunt, my mother and my grandmother, then there were my two younger brothers. I was so excited about starting school. 

It was a lifetime ago, and I can still smell those summer days in the best island in the world. Six years after the photo was taken, I was in the school yard taking photo again. I finished grade six. A milestone. 

Between that six years, every day after school, I was always hiding in a corner of the school yard reading. War and Peace, Les Misérables, Outlaws of the Marsh, or The Journey to the West…  But that photo, that black and white photo taken on a camera worth a medal, was probably the most perfect moment of my life – my family were smiling and healthy and as Edna St Vincent Millay said, Childhood is the kingdom where nobody dies.

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