May
2
“Happy childhoods return to haunt self-deceivers mostly. Those who have had them seem to sink into an adulthood that is a state of depletion, or to advance without consciousness of their luck into a happy adulthood. In childhood, the moments of consciousness that we later recall occur precisely when we are not happy, but those high moments transform themselves by a miracle into a memory of happiness, as though stones had hatched. What makes them sweet to us is that they took place during a time we have forgotten but which is part of ourselves. Memories yielded by that time are as from a golden age, although their gilding has almost certainly been subsequent.”
Candia McWilliam, “Debatable Land”, p.47.
