The Growing Up Right

I am a fan of the smart and poignant book Your Children Will Raise You.

In its chapter The Birth Year relentlessly poetic Louise Erdrich speaks of her daughter...

It is raw power to go forward to lunge, catching at important arms and hands, to take control of the body, tell it what to do, to leave behind the immobility of babyhood. With each step she swells, her breath goes ragged and her eyes darken in a shine of happiness.... It would seem she has everything she could want -- she is fed, she is carried, she is rocked, put to sleep. But no, walking is the thing, the consuming urge to seize control. She has to walk to gain entrance to the world... She will walk to think, not to think, to leave the body, which is often the same as becoming at one with it. She will walk to ward off anger in its many forms. For pleasure, purpose, or to grieve. She'll walk until the world slows down until her brain lets go of everything behind and until her eyes see only the next step. She'll walk until her feet hurt, her muscles tremble, until her eyes are numb with looking. She'll walk until her sense of balance is the one thing left and the rest of world is balanced, too, and eventually, if we do the growing up right, she will walk away from us.

I post this today for baby son walks, you see. Me, I am more silly than poetic about it.


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