A song of innocence and experience

We went to Amsterdam and back via Reykjavik at the end of February. On the KEF to BOS segment of the flight home, there were a woman and a man with a small child, perhaps 12-14 months old, sitting across the aisle from me. I amused myself and the child from time to time by making silly faces and waving, and was rewarded with a big baby grin each time.

Somewhere over Canada I looked over at the family to see the baby on her mother's lap, the two of them facing each other, playing a game of peekaboo. The baby held her little sweater in front of her face and raised it over her head repeatedly; every time she lowered her arms, her mother nuzzled and nibbled her face through the sweater, all to the accompaniment of squeals of delight. I couldn't help but watch and smile.

There's something so poignant about the laugh of a child that young, that pure baby joy. It's the sound of a child who feels loved and secure, who doesn't yet know what kind of pain may be in store in the future, the ache of disappointment, the anger at injustice, all the wounds the world can inflict. And then I think how tragic it is that we experience that for such a tiny fraction of our lives and that most of us probably don't even remember it except in a gauzy, dreamy haze. Even more tragic is the thought of people who didn't get to experience it even as babies.

The closest I've come to that feeling as an adult, I think, has been while drowsing in the arms of a lover. That is a wonderful feeling. All too soon, though, I have to wake up and face the real world again. I can't ever reclaim the pure innocence of a happy infancy.

But I can still listen to the joyous laughter of a life just begun, and smile.

March 8, 2001