Of the thousand words this picture evokes in us, the first few are, “Oh, to be 4 years old in summertime again.”
Tribune photographer Nancy Stone captured Alexis Williams of Kankakee as she played in the Garfield Park fountain on Chicago’s West Side the other day. Alexis’ eyes are closed, her arms outstretched. She’s in mid-frolic, her look one of pure joy. It’s a look of such bliss that, selfishly, we want her to stay 4 years old in that fountain on a lazy August day forever.
But she won’t. Four-year-olds become 5-year-olds, and so on, each age with its charm. Children grow. They go to school and begin to worry about homework and fitting in. Too soon, the worries are about colleges and jobs and falling in love and mortgages and families and all the rest. Then comes the day when conversation turns to, oh, long-term nursing-care insurance. By then, many people have forgotten all about blissful moments in a fountain back when they were 4.
The summer frolic already has ended for some people — vacations concluding, school doors opening — and soon it will be history for everyone. August always begins slow and languid. Then, one night we feel a chill in the air and, without warning, discover the next morning that the tempo has quickened.
None of us adults can be 4 years old again. But we can find our inner 4-year-olds. This photo reminds us all that we should stop, briefly, and savor a moment, then another and another, for safekeeping — even if we aren’t frolicking in a fountain, transported to a place that we alone imagine, on a summer day in Garfield Park.
