Steps

Steps *** Remember standing barefoot In a stream or lake or ocean as the current of water ran cool and fast over the ankles? That liquid, which made our planet a home for life, beckoning us and so delightfully. Think of walking in night, without lights, becoming self-contained, losing external references, seeking the moon or some neighbor’s window, alight still...while glancing quickly down to squint and know if the next step will continue on the pavement. There is good reason to remember walking barefoot in cool, thick mud — luscious scrunching the toes in that earth’s batter! There is meaning in the memory of tortured stepping barefoot over a length of dry, sun-burning sand...so instantly blistering, so evil in its lack of relief, at least until escaping its distance. Think of the first challenging, trudging steps in a knee-high snowfall...like the first steps of turning to a belief in God and so much easier with others, then reaching a route that has been plowed. Think of journeys of the mind, walking in times and on the streets we’ve never before been or want to imagine a return to...lively, but yet non-existent wanderings, much like those we walk in sleeping dreams. We cannot recall those very first steps we took, thrusting us out of babyhood, taken by a natural calling when we are too young for any conscious intent, having only an entirely physical desire to move... over there... set within a wordless desire to rise, innately curious to discover! Yesterday I watched baby Emmie scrambling in her stroller. Within, she sensed there must be some other way to subtract sitting, to move through the room.... Compulsion gripped her desire to rise, to step, even run...her legs kicking non-stop ready to launch... Only recently emerging from paralysis, I can sympathize with Emmie’s chair-stuck scrambling frustration. It is the human wish to set off in motion, off on explorations. —————————————————————— (c) sally young Eslinger 5/10/21