beauty

yesterday i witnessed something beautiful.
i walked out of my apartment hurrying to get to class, only to hear the sound of a commentator describing an intense and dramatic soccer game. Intrigued, I walked out into the courtyard to find a young girl deep within a moment of her imaginary world. Facing the stairs with a soccer ball five feet in front of her, she hushes the crowd and dramatically sets up her scene:

the world record is at stake - one shot
determines the rest of her life -
everything has come down to this moment.

She pauses as she notices me standing behind her - waiting in anticipation, captivated in her world. "Go ahead" she says, recognizing that I have to go up the stairs to get to class. "It's okay," I tell her, but she still stands back. "Sounds like a pretty intense game." "Oh, it is!" she said, nodding her head up and down in excitement. I laugh and wish her good luck and walk up the flight of stairs. She continues to talk to herself - counting down the seconds before she has to kick the winning shot in her game. I turn and watch her make her move as she kicks the ball up the flight of stairs.

Goal!

Triumphantly she waves her hands about her, jumping up and down. She continues in her celebration with comments of how the world record has been broken - she has done it.

I giggled and turned around, continuing to listen to the sound of her precious excitement. In that moment, I ached for childhood.