Puff! A Dragon Returns

I wandered in the backyard long ago, when I was very young, and I sang out loud, lost in the inner realm of magic, song and aimless play.  I was cast adrift, on the loose, at the mercy of my changing moods and ideas.  Happy usually, preoccupied with dreams, oblivious at first to the bigger world.  My world was simple and promised to be endless.

"PUFF! the magic dragon lived by the sea..."

I walked in deep powdery silt, fine as flour, stamping my bare feet to make it shoot up between my toes in puffs while I sang loudly as my voice could go.  "PUFF!"  I had my own large dragon when I sang.  Or, I was a dragon, too, and yelled my own name out loud.  "PUFF!"  We flew around of course, taking turns to ride or fly; we traded forms and places.  Magic dragons do that.  The one I imagined was beautiful, muscular and sinuous, could move like a flash of light.  His skin glittered like the shiniest thing I could imagine:  Tin foil Christmas tree light reflectors, all different colors, brilliant and true.

I danced on the rainbows of innocence, full of myself, certain I could live in the treetops, leap from mountain top to mountain top.  Napkins became sails that filled with a gusting golden wind, puddles were lakes with fantastic waterworks and furniture made fortresses on rainy days.

"PUFF! the magic dragon lived by the sea, and frolicked in the autumn mist..."

I created my universe, flew in my dreams as easily as a dandelion lifts on the wind.  It was all possible, without end, infinite in joy and sweetness.  All things were absolutely real and timelessly changeable.

I was seven years and had no idea about anything uncertain, devious, ugly or mean.  I was a little girl then and knew just enough about adult life to realize that I wanted no part of it, had no idea what I wanted to do when I grew up - on purpose.  Adults lived behind a curtain of mystery and strangeness, came and went, said things that made no sense in my world.

"Little Jackie Paper loved that rascal Puff..."  But his green scales fell like rain.  Doubt sifted into the corners of my reality.  Large things gradually became smaller, less magical, but I resisted it strongly, sadly, even angrily at times.

I yelled "PUFF! the magic dragon!" to counter the tears, give him courage and embolden his heart.  There were other kids besides Jackie for Puff to hang out with, kids who would not abandon their fantasies and magic friends.  Like me.  Puff, I'll play with you, I promised.  Forever.  I am not going to be a grownup.  Ever.  I will never do the things grownups do, will never be odd, or frightening or cruel.  I will always run, sing and dance.  I will always tell the truth, no matter what.

Something was gradually pulling me away from everything I loved and wanted to do, to know.  Criticism, judgement, my own imperfection was revealed to me in small nuances and hints.  Was this what adulthood was going to mean for me?

The song changed me.  I never wanted to hear the last part, only the first.  The realization that something was ahead for me, a sadness, melancholia, seemed so wrong, so upsetting that I was angry whenever I heard the ending verses.  I countered them by singing the first verse loudly with my own fearless roar, as a cheer for wild freedom and innocence, safety from ugliness and devious harms.  I'd loved my unlimited exploration of the world around me so much that limits I felt settling around my wrists and ankles, gossamer shackles placed by culture and expectation, gave me as much urge and need to escape as a wild horse does when first roped.

"PUFF! The magic dragon!"

Years later, when I was 30 or so, I was in an audience on the lawn on a summer night in San Diego.  Paul Stookey was singing the old song, just like he had when I was seven.  There was a roar coming from deep in the bones of every person standing, all rocking from left to right and back again, moving in a trance of nearly forgotten flight on the back of dragons they'd had in childhood.  Every time the song got to the magic word PUFF, we all yelled it and then paused, listening to it echo on the hills.  Tears flowed down every cheek, trails of memories begun in the early 60s when magic was not yet stolen from our hands.

I say puff very lightly now, but I hear the echoing shouts of a few thousand grown and aged children who had wandered far from their younger days, hardly aware of leaving them behind, sad that they'd had to.  Puff, and it's gone, just like morning mist on a warming summer day, turning the corner to autumn.