THE WORLD AT SEVEN(Susan Joyner-Stumpf) THE WORLD AT SEVEN

Life is a strange world when you’re seven years old. I remember being by the river’s edge at my parents summer home. The family dog, Rinty, a female German Shepherd, is lying by my side. The weather is a balmy 87 and I’m chewing on blades of grass, watching catfish do somersaults in the air between rushing currents and wondering where they are going. The sweet scent of Wisteria is on the wind and I drink in its succulent gift.

All of life is ahead of me, but what does that mean to a seven year old? All I cared about was that I was fortunate enough to be surrounded by nature at such an early age, where I could take in the grandeur of a 300-year old oak tree whose branches were twenty times my size and her trunk larger than that. Forests surrounded us in the little half-acre clearing. There was a long, winding, dirt road leading from our house to the main beach Pavilion. This is where the campers who did not own their home stayed. Bands played there on Friday nights and there were events going on all the time with firework displays and food and people everywhere having a good, clean time. Then there was the winding Ponchatoula River in front of me; lazily I watched skiers span her surfaces into sprays of speeding departure.

Rinty was at my side. She guarded me like one of her precious pups. The smell of my father’s barbecue chicken on the grill began to waft through the breeze, interfering with the Wisteria and Jasmine, but that’s okay, I was getting hungry. I heard my parents' glasses clashing. It was Happy Hour and I’m sure they were drinking beers and tropical rum drinks with their friends, whose laughter I could hear and it comforted me, for some odd reason. Their happiness was evident and I reveled in it even then at its poignant meaning: the circle of friendship.

I began to tell Rinty secrets that I didn’t want anyone else to know. Her soft brown soulful eyes blinked at me in a dog’s special way of understanding its seven year old mischievous mistress. My conversation was only interrupted by intermittent chirping of a fussy Wood Thrush and the sound of outboard motors pulling skiers skimming by. Other than that, it was all about subdued quiet mixed with echoes of the Happy Hour taking place up on the bank beside the house. After I wore myself and Rinty out with my childish rantings, we took a nap together in the late afternoon sun, her massive head on my chest rising with each of my little breaths.

I was awoken by the call of my mother that dinner was ready. I could hear my brother up there with one of his friends, so Rinty and I made our way across the dock, up the ramp to the bank leading towards the summer house. My parents and their guests and my brother and his buddy were already gathering around the buffet table to help themselves to piles of Barbeque Chicken and Smoked Sausage , Potato Salad, String-bean Casserole, fresh honey dipped Rolls, fresh mint Ice Tea, and later, for dessert, homemade Peach Ice Cream and Angel Food Cake.

My parents’ friends smiled at me, interweaving fingers through my long blonde hair and warning me I’d better watch staying out in the sun too long because I’m fair-skinned and get red easily. One of the women joked with me, saying, “you’re so cute. I bet there’s a lot of boys out there with a crush on you.”

I was slightly embarrassed when she said this, and turned redder than the sun could ever make me. My brother and his friend looked at me for a response, and all I did was smile weakly. But I winked at Rinty to remind her of secrets I had confessed, knowing there was full trust in her.

In my heart, I know she winked back.

© Susan Joyner-Stumpf

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