My daughter Isabela — less formally, more naturally Bela; though she is capable of carrying her more regal name, when called upon by the drama of the moment to do so — has traveled to Florida with her mother and brother, to be with her Brazilian grandparents and uncle and aunt for a few days. Ah, yes, and to meet the newest cousin, little Lucas, Luquinho perhaps, born a year ago in a country far from the familial home.

Bela has been challenged by change lately. There is plenty of it to go around, while constancy is constantly in short supply; as she grows her body is changing as well, so while the rug may not have been pulled from under her feet, the floor has been pulled out from beneath the rug. It is a more confusing situation, since the appearance of ground is mocked by the spongy and intangible feeling of the flying carpet weave, riding high above nothing, it would seem.

Before she left, I reminded her that we have two hands: we have one hand for giving and another for receiving — a hand which holds the past and which makes us feel secure, and another that opens to whatever the day or the week or the year will bring us. You may wish to close one or the other because of what they carry, or because what they call up is uncomfortable to hold; still, the past is there like a jewel or a stone, and the future is there for anyone who cares to unclench their fingers.

~

I told her that the left hand held everything she valued from home: friends, pets, houses, favorite foods, her bed… and that the right hand was reaching toward everything good that the future offered: rarely-seen family, warm weather and warm beaches (compared to our frigid New England waters), another part of the country, and let’s not forget DisneyWorld.

She took a pen and asked me to draw my face in my left palm as thickly as I could, so the ink beaded in its outline. Then she took my hand in hers and squeezed hard, holding us together for 30 seconds or so. Afterwards, she unfolded our handshake to see if the face in my hand had transferred to hers. Enough, just enough. “You’re the most important thing I am leaving here…”

I thought of the size of the world, even a few years ago, when pubescence, and the seeds of social politics, and Knowledge hadn’t sprouted yet; before the concept of divorce existed, before several more rodent-pets had been buried, before a cat had been run over; before dozens of new foods and new desserts had been tasted; before the bud of Ten-Thousand Things had blossomed. I found pictures of her taken not so long ago, yet almost unimaginably distant… and the sweetness and the ease, the certainty, the indelible certainty of being loved and being protected were written in her smile…

It makes a father cry. Not for innocence lost, but for the wisdom gained, for the beauty of the passing of years, and for sweet-tart poignancy, which is the only beauty that endures.

Bela will be gone for just a few days, but she calls me once in the morning, once at noon, and once or twice at night. A voice has this power: to hold a hand as though it were a floor, and to support the flying carpet as it wings its way toward the future. Later, she will be the strength for others, if she is able; right now I am the strength for her, like a pillar that props up the roof. Innocence is asking to be educated, asking to be made obsolete.

~

I remember a story my mother told me, of an elderly woman who had recently fallen in love again, at age 75 or 80. “People say you get old and crusty,” she told my mother. “But look at me: I’m giddy as a schoolgirl! The body might get rheumy, but the heart… is as young as love can make it.”

Ah, these traumas and trials. They settle into our bones and cells as though stone-dust, as though grain by grain they mixed with the waters of our being to make mortar, to brick us up. That’s not life; that’s anti-life. That’s closing the left hand around the anchors and scars of the past, without keeping the right hand open… to be touched. To be taken by someone else’s hand. To pick the beautiful fruit from the Garden, to eat. To smile, even if it is from memory, because then it will not be a memory but a living thing, you’ll be wearing it like a child, right now.

The Indian mystic Osho wrote a short passage about innocence. He said:

Zen says that if you drop knowledge — and within knowledge everything is included, your name, your identity, everything, because this has been given to you by others — if you drop all that has been given by others, you will discover a totally different quality to your being: innocence.

It will be a crucifixion of the persona, the personality, and there will be a resurrection of your innocence; you will become a child again, reborn.

The innocence of children is beautiful, but ignorant. The innocence that comes from a deep experience of life is childlike, not childish.

It is an interesting exercise, to imagine yourself without a name. The passage of time will change its meaning anyway, and death will erase it completely — so, if you are in such good company as Time and Death, why not give it a try? Each of those things you believe defines you: your nationality, your political party, your car, your husband or children… your beliefs… your sadness, your happinesses… take them in the hand of your mind, and let them go.

It’s instructive to play with the notion of emptiness — it’s safe enough, you have nothing to lose, as they say, but your chains, as anything that has real value, anything you are “attached to” (or is attached to you) will be picked up again before you head off down the road of life. You cannot empty yourself so easily. You might as well give a really good heave-ho, and try your best to chuck it away for a few minutes.

Why? Because emptiness allows you to receive gifts. If your hand is clenched, if your hand is full, nothing can enter, no one can reach you. That’s sad. Imagine how much beauty is available to you, in the days or months or years of living that remain! If you let go of your name for a bit, and let go of the idea that you are your profession, that you are your position… then a little of that delicious innocence can return.

~

Remember, remember?

The grass had just begun to cool with the night’s dew, and the clouds, made rosy by the city’s lights, were moving in and out of tree branches, in front of and away from the flecks of stars, as though veils before the eyes of us watchers, or veils below the eyes of God, teasing us all with sight and blindness. You and I were quiet, and we heard the other’s breath. Minutes passed, and the heaven’s wheel turned. One blazing light shook itself free of the elm and stood out above us as though a father, or as though a mother looking down into our gentle Midwestern night. It was Saturn, the palest yellow, slightly elongated from the rings… remember then how deep the sky was? It reached forever, where the stars hadn’t yet been named and hadn’t yet been dismissed.

Then the moon… with its smiling face (how was it drawn with a face!)… rose over us, where we lay damp and almost asleep, while the cloth and the clicking squeak of bats fluttered over the yard. While my parents and your parents tucked their cares into beds and bureaus for the night, lifted the curtain an inch to check on their daughter, on their son, safe on the settled front lawn.

The moon poured its smiling self silver over the yard, and you moved your hand an inch, then another inch, then held my cool fingers in yours that were so warm.

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