In the Beginning

In the beginning and even before there was a beginning, the end had come. The costliest journeys in life are those that are never taken. We tell more stories about them, long more for them, dream more of them. They suffer a lot of embellishment in our hands too. It seems the dead and the unborn garner a lot of respect from the living. Absence creates an air of mysteriousness that presence quells. And so we respect and worship those journeys we never took, more than the ones we took. We ought to learn to respect life more than death.

It’s important to keep going. It was the tortoise steadiness that gave him victory over the hare, not his slowness. It’s also important to finish strong. But what of the vast majority of us who have never started? Of course, I am wrong. Everyone has started something. What of the vast majority of us who haven’t really started because all they started was what society expected of them or what family and friends asked that they start? What of those ones who have not started that journey they want to take? One of them will be a writer, the other a scientist and the third will probably be a historian, I said concerning my children. Then I remembered to let beginnings remain beginnings. My children will not be a continuation of me. They will be beginnings of themselves.

In the beginning was the days I decided to take my own journey and the many more days it took me to get a move on. It is the day of purpose, the day when night finally melts into dawn, the moon meshed in the sun. It is the day the dream receives the breath that will give it life. Everything good thing started someday, somewhere, with someone who did something little, something seemingly inconsequential. Ask your parents how you were born.

First steps aren’t so difficult. Even baby knows that. With her entire family cheering her on, she takes a wary look at the crowd of fans, a wicked look at the unsmiling ground, braces herself for that first step. She looks up again at daddy rushing towards the shelf, allows him time to come back with his camera, even allows him get it ready to take the shot. She looks intently at the ever incoherent TV with disinterest, and then at 2- year old brother Toby holding and luring her with her lovely Woody. Finally, little baby takes one last look around and gently hits her bum on the ground. Of course, everybody still cheers. “Maybe she’ll walk tomorrow”, Toby offers. They don’t understand, baby thinks, that walking is so mysterious. It’s easy but mysterious. It’s really unlike grabbing the light from the candle. That isn’t scary. But walking? Walking would make you equals with grandpa and mean nobody would carry you up the stairs again. Nothing could be as mean as that. But because walking would also mean being able to walk up to mummy’s room and get a taste of those red lollipops she used alone, baby decided to show them walking. With the camera out of sight and everybody facing the box, baby grabbed the centre table, pulled herself up, took on mummy’s pose, confidently thrust out her leg and landed flat on her face! So much for easy!

Why not take a journey? If I could walk to the moon and back, then so can you. All it takes is snacks for the journey, some courage, plenty creativity and lots of walking! In the beginning I began. Now I live because I began. And in this world of beginnings, only beginners have a place.