Recently, I was reminded by a high school friend, via social media, that a small group of friends and I had written and performed a song for her dog, based on the 1963 song “Puff the Magic Dragon” by Peter, Paul and Mary. While the words of that song, dedicated to her dog, Ruff, (I know you can guess how we got the idea,) are fading from my memory after all these years; I do recall how the song made us smile and reflect on the setting sun of our school days and the imminent dawn of our adult years.
When Bobbie helped me recall that iconic song of the 1960’s, I immediately sought out the lyrics to see if I could remember what Tommy and I had penned so long ago. The words began to return, but not entirely. Fortunately, Bobbie, by some miracle, kept those lyrics and soon I will have the complete and only song that Tommy and I ever performed. In lieu of those words and seeking to relive a treasured memory from my teenage years, I took a closer look at what Peter Paul and Mary had to say about Puff. Now, through the eyes of a much older man, I was surprised to discover that I was hearing it from a completely different perspective.
As you may know, the song laments the aging of Jackie Paper, his growing interest in other, more adult activities and the ultimate and highly predictable, abandoning of his old friend, Puff. Puff does not take this well and returns to his cave, not quite as fierce as and bold as he was when Jackie Paper was a part of his daily life. Life went on and Jackie moved on to other pursuits.
Returning to those lyrics now, as a much older person, I was now drawn to Puff and his struggles. When I was younger and penned my adaption along with Tommy, we focused on Jackie and his parting with the joys of youth for the realities of an adult. Now that I have lived in that adult world for longer than I had experienced the coming of age moments in the 1960’s, I no longer viewed the song quite the same as I had way back then. I was now seeing it through the eyes of a man, a husband and a father, who had experienced life in all its many forms and fashions. My younger self did not have the benefit of a life’s journey… I now did…and I suspect that Puff also had a similar path in his dragon- life. It seems, that as I aged, I grew to more completely understand what Puff had to teach me.
As the song declares, “A dragon lives forever but not so little boys.” Of course, little boys, and girls, will grow up, but the dragon remains as he always has. He is already mature, his growing days are over. Puff laments the maturing of Jackie, but in retrospect, he should have known what was going to happen. Children must grow, mature into adults and leave behind their childhood pursuits. It is the natural course of life and parents, like dragons, need to accept this.
The hurried rush of our children’s growing years, school, homework, sporting events, activities and friends, leads us into the whirlpool of life and there is often precious little time to pause and reflect on the growing adulthood of our progeny. Life throws so much at us when our children are younger that by the time we realize we no longer have tiny children, but rather mature human beings, we are often too tired to notice; until their addresses are not the same as ours. I think that is what happened to Puff….. and he did not take it well.
What I learned from Puff is that growth, aging and becoming an adult, is all about letting go.. and letting go gracefully. In our youth, we are all about acquiring. We get our own place, our own job, our own family, our own interests. Gradually, as we age, we start letting go of things. Our children develop their own careers and we must let them go. In fact, they start letting go of us, whether we want them to or not, at an earlier age than we care to admit. They find friends and lovers and soon they have carved out an unique and special place of their own in this world. We should be proud, we should encourage them, but often, we do not. We tend to behave much like Puff and that is not healthy for Puff or Jackie Paper.
We let go of our own parents, a growing number of childhood friends, pursuits we can no longer continue and activities we no longer want or need. We often “downsize” our homes, give away possessions that no longer fit our lifestyle and, most sadly if we are not careful, our dreams and goals. If Puff ever taught me anything, it is that this does not need to happen. While we must let go of many things, and this is natural, we must never give up who we are on the inside.
When we were young, we learned to live and discovered our unique and individual self. Our life experiences shaped and molded what we became, but deep inside of us lives that little boy or girl and we must never forget where we came from and who we really are. The older I get, the more I understand that I must never give up that which remains in my heart. That special piece will always remain deep inside of me, along with the memories of days gone by and people who no longer share this planet with me.
I have learned, as I fear Puff never did, that life goes on. We must, of course, take time to lament and then let go, but we should also recall the lessons of those halcyon days when we still believed in dragons. Keep singing your songs, painting your portraits, writing your books. Mature, but never grow up. Life is an adventure, a song waiting to be sung. Letting go of one thing simply means taking up another. There is no reason to “sadly slip into your cave.” You can still “frolic in the autumn mist” in your very own Honah Lee. Now, how did that go? “Ruff the hungry doggie…..” I think I have it now.