One early May morning at the bus stop, I stood with two other neighborhood moms, all of us smiling at the three beautiful little girls playing on the lawn. Our daughters were constructing a fairy house for any passing nature spirits who might not find shelter elsewhere. My neighbor sighed wistfully, "I wish I could be a kid again."

This is probably not an uncommon wish among adults. At times, our kids seem so carefree, so spontaneous and filled with life. They have no knowledge of bills and insurance, no worries over keeping the house clean, doing dishes or getting food on the table. They don't yet know the annoyance of telemarketers or the complicated social niceties we all too often force ourselves to play.

On the other hand, most kids will tell you they want to be "grown ups." I remember thinking at age 10 how utterly great it would be to drive a car. If you were old enough to drive, you could take yourself anywhere. In my mind, driving equaled freedom, the ability to take off and visit new places whenever you chose. To do that was truly to be carefree, I imagined. It would mean being done with school and homework, of having to do what your parents told you to do.

There are a lot of great quotes to remind us that age (along with feeling carefree) really has much more to do with how we feel inside than how we look outside - from "you're only as young as you feel" to "the worst old age is that of the mind." But so too is there a time-wiggle involved in coming to understand this, a point of relativity wherein time seems to curve in upon itself. In nearly every life, there is a little flip-flop of positions when suddenly we realize that we have become our parents and our children have become us. How did that happen? As Mark Twain explained it, "When I was a boy of 14, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be 21, I was astonished at how much he had learned in seven years."

This issue of Alaska Wellness focuses on the relationship between parents and children. It is an incredible give-take, teaching-learning relationship that never loses its power. We are never too old to be swept up into the creative imaginings of a child, experiencing the world with all the color and excitement we once knew. And we are never too young not to benefit from the wisdom of our elders and those who care for us. Can we imagine a world in which these two aspects of being come together? "Imagine if as a child you knew what you know now," writes author John MacEnulty. "Imagine if you knew now what you knew then."

I wish now that I would have encouraged my neighbor to help make the fairy house. Why not? We could have all gotten down on our hands and knees, gently fashioning the land with our daughters while making soft our vision to see once again the world in which nature spirits dance and shimmer in the sunbeams on early morning leaves of grass.

So, enjoy your kids this summer. Let them show you things. Make fairy houses. Look those little teachers straight in the eyes and smile when they remind you of the forgotten art of play. Remember to love, laugh, live and learn. And don't despair if the dishes don't get done. As Pablo Picasso once told his friends: "It takes a long time to become young."