The more adult truth is that she lived with her lifelong partner, the artist and professor Tuulikki Pietilä; they spent their winters in Helsinki and, until they were too old to do so, their summers on the small unpopulated Finnish islands that Jansson and her family discovered and cultivated.
Or rather, I learned in a rush that night the adult truth, which is that the world makes no compacts with you at all, and that the most you can hope is to negotiate a short-term treaty with it - an armistice, which the world, like a half-mad monarch, will then break, just as it likes.
Adult truths stud his juvenile observations but some of the stories are easily forgotten.
Eventually, of course, reality starts to bite, and once they're adults, the group must confront some very adult truths: infidelity, miscarriage, addiction and – most tellingly – paedophilia.
"I Wish" tends toward the vaporous and not just because of its volcano; but whenever its children are on screen, lighted up with joy or dimmed by hard adult truths, the film burns bright.
"At AiG and the Creation Museum, we teach children and adults the truth concerning who they are in the Creator's eyes -- and where they came from".
Authentic adults demand the truth, however distressing.
In truth, adults may be calling the kettle black.
Adults hide the truth about sex from us youth, and that leads to so many messy first times and broken condoms and unwanted pregnancies.
It's a persistent part of our mythology, and it might have to do with how disoriented, perplexed, and confused we felt as little kids: like adults knew the truth about everything, if only we could grow up!
