Last week I was blessed to be near a few babies. They were less impressed with me than I was with them but that need not be cause for an affront. Their attention was otherwise employed, being new to this world of air and changing temperature, nursing and clanking sounds.

 

The young girls in the room were drawn to the babies, like birds to flowers. They could not resist petting them, feeling their velvety heads, and gasping at their eensy fingernails. One girl bent down for a closer look, and compared them to her own which seemed positively enormous by comparison. 

 

The infants did nothing out of the ordinary to garner such attention, by the way. The occasional smile, dove like coos, and a few wiggles. That was all. Yet their presence was enough to make witty conversation obsolete, trendy clothes irrelevant. There was nothing more enticing than scooching within their sphere of influence. 

 

I find it marvelous that such power comes without the annoying wake of cockiness so often attached like an entourage. The babies could no more take credit for their sweetness than do the springtime gardens populated by hummingbirds. Babies, and flowers, are unfettered with self absorption. Rather they are completely engaged with being alive. 

 

They have much to teach me.