I make this claim boldly, though as all of you know by now, I have never supped of maturity myself. I simply rely on the expertise of my betters who have visited the halls of grown-up-itude, however unwillingly or briefly, and am assured that my current Peter Pan flight plan will serve my needs and interests far better than the perhaps morally uplifting or civically productive ones others pursue. Sorry, world. What you see is undoubtedly what you’ll get.
Still, I flatter myself (another of my peculiarly abundant gifts) that many of my true role models, from my esteemed pater on out to remoter avatars like, yes, S. J. Perelman, have made careers and lives out of similarly irresponsible seeming stuff and yet managed in the greater scheme of things to have marvelous adventures out of those lives and careers, and even influenced others so to do. While I have no delusions of my own future grandeur based on their successes, I at least think of them as a partial excuse.
Art-Colored Glasses 
This topic of this article is rather personal to me, Kathryn. I always recall a wedding toast I heard in the first year I landed in this country, which was 1992 by the way. Spoken by the maid of honor about the bride:” She is childlike. I want to make this distinction clearly because there is nothing childish about her (the bride). She simply has remained childlike.”
Those words stuck with me all through these years. Incidentally, my childhood Conservatory friend, as the Conservatory was my only childhood, said to me a few nights ago on the phone:” I am 42 now. At times, I still feel like the same person as I first came to this country.” Mind you, this friend of mine, a superb pianist, who in reality, is adamantly not childish, has made a rather successfully “grown up” living through concertizing alone.
I would like to think that there is no harm in keeping your inner child alive, your irrevocable and imitable inner child that can’t be “claimed” or dubbed by an impersonator, as long as maturity has manifested itself on the outward. I would be horrified and humiliated it I were ever compared with a real life teenager.
I would respond to this at greater length—but you said it perfectly! And as for your last sentence, being a teenager in actual calendar years is hard enough without having to be associated with the stereotypical character of a Teenager!
Thanks for a fabulous lunch yesterday! Always a great and refreshing break. And *delicious* wonton soup, too!!!
❤
K
absolutely adore this: “and splashed his inky laugh”
Thank you, my sweet! I kind of thought it captured both the way his character came solely through his writing for me and also the darkly wry humor of it.
😀
I like this.
Thank you! I’m glad to find another kindred spirit. 😀
Love this! And I love the fact that our inner child can remain active; mine certainly is and I shall keep feeding her favourite food so she stays around! 😄 xx
Amen, sister! 😀
❤
LOVE your expressive illo.
Based on selfies I took before the word was coined—I had to do it both with younger pictures of me and definitely, as self-portraiture, since nobody appreciates my immaturity better than I do. 😉 !