The Three Year Old Mountain

Idea by Camilla Baum, age 3.

There are many reasons a mountain can be
blue. If it’s covered with blue flowers, for
example. Or blue pine trees. Or sheets of ice
reflecting the clear blue sky. Or if it’s made of a
blue-colored stone. Or, of course, if it’s a
magic mountain.

According to one little girl, there’s a blue
magic mountain not far from here. A day’s
walk at best. More of a stroll, really. For an
adult, it would be an easy stroll, since the
day’s time assumes you are walking
hand-in-hand with a child. Any age child
would do, but it’s best if you take a
three-year-old. Here’s why: As soon as you
walk onto the mountain, you turn into a
three-year-old. It lasts only as long as you are
on the mountain.

So why would you want to bring a
three-year-old with you? Because he or she
(she in this case) wouldn’t change. And she’d
be able to help you remember what it was like
to be a three-year-old. How to play. How to
have fun. And how to stop thinking about all
those adult things that make it hard to be a
proper three-year-old.

That’s all there is to this story. She hasn’t
taken me there, yet, though she says she will
soon. While she’s still three. And she doesn’t
want me to say anything more about the
mountain. She’s afraid too many people
would know where it was. That too many
adults would go there. It’d be okay if they went
with their children, she explained, especially
their three-year-old children. But she thinks
they would go by themselves. And then when
she and I went there’d be too many adults
around. Too many three-year-old adults.

She says adults wouldn’t enjoy it without a
three-year-old. Because they wouldn’t know
how to. Because they wouldn’t remember how
to really be a three-year-old.

She says, “They can’t. They’d need help.”

So that’s it. Not much of a story, I know. But
then I haven’t gone to the mountain, yet.
Maybe I’ll write more after I do. Or maybe I
won’t. But either way, I’ll probably wait until a
certain little girl is no longer a three-year-old.