When I was in first grade my primary reader was entitled “Seven is Magic” and so being 6 at the time, I was convinced that when I was seven, that of course, I would be magical. I had grand plans for that year, flying around the room, eating dessert first and last, and the power to stop time.
Seven came and went. It didn’t all go the way I thought it would... but what ever does go the way you think it will? It always seems to go differently, and in retrospect, better than I had dreamed. I love one part of a poem by Ella Wilcox.. my favorite line is “the splendor of the real, surpassed my early dream’s ideal”.
For now I see that while seven may not have held all the magic that I had wished for myself, seven has held so much magic for me when I see my children at seven. I see them learning to read and becoming voracious readers who love to lose themselves in the beauty of words. That is the magic that is in seven, more magic than I ever could have imagined when I just wanted to be able to fly and to make dessert come first in my meals. I still can’t capture that elusive stopping of time- but maybe the small appreciation of what is magical about seven will help slow it down for at least a few minutes. Seven is magic, and so is Thirty-eight sometimes...
from The Room Beneath the Rafters by Ella Wheeler Wilcox
And there I fashioned from my brain
Youth's shining structures in the air,
I did not wholly build in vain,
For some were lasting, firm and fair.
And I am one who lives to say
My life has held more good than gray,
And that the splendor of the real surpassed my early dream's ideal.
But still I love to wander back
To that old time and that old place;
To thread my way o'er Memory's track,
And catch the early morning's grace
In that quaint room beneath the rafter,
That echoed to my childish laughter;
To dream again the dreams that grew more beautiful as they came true...