Walking to Where We Are

SUSANNE RENNENKAMPFF

Years ago I would have walked through this park to get somewhere—the shoe store, perhaps, or the drugstore not far from the train station at the end of the pedestrian zone.

I would have paid little attention to the ducks paddling in the large pond the water so clear that you can see their coral feet, all thirteen pairs moving as if propelled by the same force.

I would, quite likely, not have noticed the wings of the peacock butterfly on the marigolds, stirring ever so slightly as if moved by the breath of a sleeping child, beautiful large eyes closing with every beat of its wings.

My thoughts would have been a thousand steps ahead.

Nor would we have pointed these things out to each other, my mother and I, had we walked the gravelled paths together, although even then we both had the same gift of being able to see small things.

She taught me, after all, by example, not by rote, before I was eager to put distance between her and me, to prove how little I was like her, still unaware how futile that attempt.