They were small moments of wonderment, as befits a small person. A sheltered life. Still, sudden blips bubbled up from within my romantic child mind, bouts of vague yet powerful curiosity that would seize me out of the blue. There were times when I was sure that some day I would understand the things that mystified me now. That one day I might even write about them. These are a handful of those moments.
Sitting on the stair landing of my quiet home at night, looking out the window to the quiet street, a pool of light beneath the lamppost, and needing to know what went on beyond that quiet. Wondering about the world.
Watching the wind-blown leaves of the oak in the center of our yard, standing in the kitchen,the thought consciously occuring to me, I Am Myself, and wondering about the world.
Checking out the newspaper, black squiggles on white, the landscape of adulthood that as yet made no sense to me, and wondering about the world.
Jumping in fall leaves with my neighbor-friend, then remembering the scratchiness of those leaves later, when he died at 16, and wondering about the world.
Chugging up a Swiss mountain trail through herds of belled cows to see a tiny jeweled village below, and wondering about the world.
Lying on the living room couch after school, lost in “Will You Love Me Tomorrow,” and wondering about the world.
Watching a teacher hold a boy by the hair and kick him for punishment, and wondering about the world.
A dry, awkward first kiss from a kid when I was 13, thinking hmmn, and wondering about the world.
Sewing a flannel nightgown for myself, by myself, and wondering about the world.
Feeling the heat of Marjorie Morningstar, of all things, and wondering about the world.
Driving on the highway to Baltimore, curled in the backseat, gazing out the window at the headlights of the trucks barreling towards us, asking myself where they were headed, and wondering about the world.
Taking the train along the Hudson and feeling certain that the world did not hold another river as beautiful. Something I knew for certain, beyond all blips of curiosity or wonderment, then as I do today.
Jean Zimmerman 
You’re too kind.
Your prose is poetry
In a way, you make me feel less alone. I used to do something like that, too.
I used to wonder about the world, but I did it over here on the left coast. I remember standing on top of Mowich Ridge in the fall, picking wild huckleberries with Mom, aunts, uncles and cousins. We looked down a couple thousand feet onto the top of a lower ridge to see a mother bear and her cub wandering among the trees. Then I lifted my eyes to look over folds of tree-fuzzed blue-green hills to the very far horizon, past Mt. Adams, and wondered what lay beyond.
We would go to the Oregon beach in high summer to have a picnic on the sand and run up and down the dunes. I remember looking at the breakers, then past them to the open ocean, and then to the far horizon. I would remark to whomever was with me that there was nothing between us and Japan, and then I would fall silent and wonder what Japan looked like.
The world is a wonder-ful place.
Book snuck off my parents’ bookcase.
Marjorie M: book or movie? Book I bet.