Found Object

I'm sleepy. I need to knock this off and get to bed. But I just wrote something I really like, in the comments section for a very sweet, sad, lovely post over at Jon's blog. Which you should read, because it's excellent, as indeed is Jon.

Because I lack for time (and therefore worthwhile content), and have almost no shame, I'm putting it here as well. Our theme is nostalgia, especially for childhood and simpler times.

* * *

We lived on a cul-de-sac, and rather than being a bulging bulb made all of road, there was a circular patch of lawn, surrounded by curb, in the middle of the turnaround. We neighborhood kids called it "the circle." There were marigolds planted around its perimeter. It can't have been more than 12 or 15 feet across, but it was an island. It was a world to itself, where you could stand and take in the whole neighborhood.

There was a buzzing flying-saucer-shaped streetlight in the center of the circle. If you looked closely, you'd see it had a solar cell down on its base, to sense when it was getting dark. That was when the parents said it was time to come home, in the summer; when the light came on.

If you put your small hand over the block of sensor dots even in the bright afternoon, and you waited, it would make the light turn on. Then you'd move your hand, and it wasn't time to go in after all.

And so, I could kind of control the whole world, a little. I think that's what I miss.