Adorable, a bundle of energy she keeps me on my toes. A beautiful smile, I fell for her even without looking at her. Now, I look at her as we drive together ,her head cranes out of the window and she looks blissful. I watch her , in love, laughing as she gulps in the air!!
I wondered , when is the time right for children to be different entities from the family that has nurtured them? Does it not begin with the moment children are born? The placenta is cut, the newborn cries and only then is the birth successful...
The nurturing goes on... In humans that never stops... Should it stop? Maybe.....maybe not.... As adults too we crave the comfort of parents The point to note is that "we" are adults now. Even though we crave it , and have had a lifetime of nurturing, It's our turn to nurture too
Animal behavior shows us how simple it can be There is the nest, the egg, the tiny little bird It grows up, it flies away, It faces it's own challenges, It remembers what it was taught, How to fly and when to watch out for enemies, If the mother bird had been holding it's hand , it wouldn't have ever learned to fly The mother progressively takes the bird on higher and higher branches, Till it has learned to fly, and then flies away one day, It does not come back for consultations at every step It makes it's own decisions It lives happily, makes it's own nest.
A poem I read I think does a wonderful job of portraying the limits of the function of nurture .
Kahlil Gibran : On Children
Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.
You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow,
which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them,
but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.
You are the bows from which your children
as living arrows are sent forth.
The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite,
and He bends you with His might
that His arrows may go swift and far.
Let our bending in the archer's hand be for gladness;
For even as He loves the arrow that flies,
so He loves also the bow that is stable.
Today is a new day, I begin. I should be doing other things....there is lots of work that I have to do, but finally after a long time, the day has come to begin.
Begin writing......... It's cloudy outside, not a bright sunny day... But I like cloudy days...:-)
There will be fun stuff, there will be wanderings... But I hope I am never too tediously wordy ; Prolix is not what I want to be.. Carpe Diem!!
