Sitting in the dark, a crowd of eyes lit up by life way back when home movies were silent and black-and-white.

Anticipation nudges nearly everyone in the room; they wiggle and then settle in for the next scene. They've watched it so many times they know what is coming. They don't really need to watch it; it's part of the family legend, but they love watching it again. All eyes on the screen... 

where the camera slips along a wide sidewalk.

and settles on a little girl five or six years old,  hair plaited in blond braids halfway to her waist, dressed in a neat pale blue cotton dress and pure white anklets. She is clearly the subject of this episode. The camera follows her as she wanders, absorbed in her own thoughts, criss-crossing the scene. She is happy on the fine July afternoon. The camera is some distance away; the viewer sees life as it was when a family outing to the zoo was special; everyone is dressed for Sunday from shiny leather shoes to very best manners.

After a few minutes people near the girl start moving off to the next exhibit area. She looks up from the stones she'd been examining and races to catch up with the group. They are tall, she is small. Young, no matter what their species know that when you are out in the wild, you stay with the adults for safety. She joins the group and walks along with them for a little while. The camera shows the girl reaching up for her mother's hand, her movement natural too, pure instinct.

Within the dark room, soft chuckles.

In the bright two-dimension, no hand reaches for the girl.  So close to the woman next to her that the fullness of the woman's skirt brushes the girl’s shoulder, the child looks up, a question on her face. The face answering her tug is a shock, a stranger, not her mama is looking down at her from standard adult elevation. Little children are busy enough with life at their own level; what goes on in the stratosphere inhabited by grownups takes care of itself but it should be predictable and reliable.  The person at the top of the tall stockinged legs should be her mother, but it's not.

Surprised to a standstill, the little blonde is left behind as the others move on. A moment of paralysis and then she looks around wildly, afraid of being alone in an unfamiliar space.

A bit of jeer now in the laughter in the dark. I don't laugh. I'm relieved when she sees the man with the camera and runs towards him. The relief is familiar and old--I felt it that long ago day, too.