The Way Children Run

Children don't walk anywhere. They haven't learned the adult art of getting from one place to another without involving the whole body. My daughter runs to the mailbox like the mailbox might leave. She runs to the swings as if the swings have been waiting for her— specifically her— and who's to say they haven't. She asks me why the sky is blue and I give her the science, and she listens politely and then says: I think it's because blue is the happiest color. And honestly her answer is the one I want to live in. She falls seven times a day and each time the ground surprises her, as if gravity were a new idea she hasn't agreed to yet. I watch her from the porch— this small, determined thing who believes that puddles are for jumping, that worms are interesting, that I am the strongest person alive— and I let her believe all of it. Every word. For as long as the world lets me.