Fantasies of fourteen

Summers in the Seu family always end with my daughter's week at the Philadelphia Folk Festival, a collection, mostly, of gray-haired, ponytailed, slightly paunched, Woodstock-grieving members of my generation. My own contribution is a day of baking pecan pies and cheesecakes to send along with the neighbors.

This year when Aimée got home, I was privileged with the following peek into the Inner Sanctum-the night that 14-year-old girls squatted in a tent and shared their fantasies of the perfect date.

One, who loves horses, described an equestrian reverie. We are to picture a beach awash in moonlight, and a couple galloping bareback, the wind parting their hair as eight hooves pockmark a virgin shore.

Somewhat less lyrical, another girl hears the boxed syncopation of remixes, and sees strobe lights, and dances till dawn in a nightclub with the one who takes her breath away.

Aimée wishes for a penthouse high above the clouds. And on that penthouse, a lush garden. And enclosing that garden, a glass dome under which is a pool. It is winter, and as she and her lover make gentle ripples in the heated water, a gentle snow falls and each flake melts as it lands on their private sky.

And then-so Aimée tells me-one of the moms, who had overheard, drew near to the dreamers and said this:

"Love is a kiss on the back of the neck when you're peeling potatoes."