The best advice sticks because it is sharp, short and aimed at the right place. The right place will be at the confluence of disquiet. For the rest of your life you will feel it swimming round in your blood, this shot of good advice.
Mine came from a dream. I was at the Grand Canyon. I was an Indian woman. There was another woman, older and silent. And my man. We were going on a journey. My man was all in black, a black crow-like figure. Severe. He was framed and backlit in the doorway of the wooden hut. I had no shoes for this journey. I said so. I complained. And I was scared. He turned to me. His eyes burned back to me. In the muffling dark of the hut the words fell round me like a rough blanket thrown. "Walk on your own two feet."
I was nineteen, too, when I found out I was pregnant. My son is now thirty-eight, so it was a long time ago. I still remember all the choices: Have the baby and marry the father, have the baby and not marry the father, get an abortion, give the baby up for adoption. Even at nineteen, having no one but myself to turn to for advice, I knew that the only choice I could live with was having the baby. I've never been sorry. My son was the greatest gift I ever gave to myself.
I read this as my grandbaby slept in her crib, the baby my pregnant nineteen-year-old daughter gave birth to. Yes, indeed, "Ten lo," because despite troubles and difficulties, the baby has brought us unbearable joy!
The best advice sticks because it is sharp, short and aimed at the right place. The right place will be at the confluence of disquiet. For the rest of your life you will feel it swimming round in your blood, this shot of good advice.
Mine came from a dream. I was at the Grand Canyon. I was an Indian woman. There was another woman, older and silent. And my man. We were going on a journey. My man was all in black, a black crow-like figure. Severe. He was framed and backlit in the doorway of the wooden hut. I had no shoes for this journey. I said so. I complained. And I was scared. He turned to me. His eyes burned back to me. In the muffling dark of the hut the words fell round me like a rough blanket thrown. "Walk on your own two feet."
I was nineteen, too, when I found out I was pregnant. My son is now thirty-eight, so it was a long time ago. I still remember all the choices: Have the baby and marry the father, have the baby and not marry the father, get an abortion, give the baby up for adoption. Even at nineteen, having no one but myself to turn to for advice, I knew that the only choice I could live with was having the baby. I've never been sorry. My son was the greatest gift I ever gave to myself.
I read this as my grandbaby slept in her crib, the baby my pregnant nineteen-year-old daughter gave birth to. Yes, indeed, "Ten lo," because despite troubles and difficulties, the baby has brought us unbearable joy!