Storytelling Bipeds

Today I went to the zoo with two of my colleagues.  Ruth was desperate to see the baby animals before they'd "graduated from college."  In fact, the baby red wolves and clouded leopard cubs were more like teenagers, but still mighty cute.  I hadn't been to the zoo for years and years, since my boys were small.  So many memories tucked away in secret compartments, forgotten!  Then, somehow, walking those trails, as the view shifted and the landscape revealed itself at turns, those memories rose up. 

Just as we came to particular fork in the paths, I recalled an incident from a visit almost fifteen years ago, when my youngest was only one, a new walker.  He had fallen, right at that place.  I remember his little brown shoes, his striped outfit, his purple hooded jacket, his hair, before it was the untamed mass of curls that it would become just a few months later.  When he fell, he hit his forehead hard, with an audible thunk.  He was so young that he hadn't yet learned to look around at the adults to discern whether this injury was wailing-worthy.  The bellowing was immediate.  His dad scooped him up and marched off, to calm them both, I'm sure.  When the crying stopped, Dad brought him back and handed him to me.  I held him only a moment before that funny baby insisted on scrambling down out of my arms.  He took a few steps, made sure I was watching, then slowly lowered himself onto all fours and then moved his forehead toward the pavement.  Then he looked up at me and whimpered, demonstrating, faking a cry.  He lifted his little arms to be held, and I picked him up.  Although he didn't have words yet, he was quite plainly telling me what happened, telling me the story. 

I have often thought about that moment, that compulsion to share the story, and I always think of Kathleen Norris's conviction that we "are essentially storytelling bipeds."

Perhaps because I love stories, for me the humans are as curious and interesting as the animals at the zoo.  I am fascinated by the interactions between parents and children, between various family members.  

We saw a woman pull her child by the hair today, because the child was, evidently, misbehaving.  By the hair.  I'm not saying I didn't get frustrated with my children, (still do), and, sure, perhaps, oh, I don't know, if there were ever a need to snatch him from the jaws of death, say, I might grab him by the hair.  But, generally, not in my repertoire of parenting skilz.

Another time I had seen a mother interrogating her very small daughter about the color of the polar bear's fur.  The child said, of course, "White."  The mother, and I distinctly remember this, said, "No, it's not white.  Each hair is cylindrical and transparent, and it reflects the colors around it."  The child, maybe three or four years old, appeared not to know what the hell her mother was talking about, but she sure knew she'd been shamed.  I never bothered to look that up, about a polar bear's fur, because, dammit, whatever, lady.  I don't know who she was trying to impress, or what her deal was, but the opportunity for engaging with wonder and delight that massive polar bear (!) just a few feet from us, behind that glass — she missed the boat.  

Of course there are loving moments, too.  Today a whole family sang, in Spanish, Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer to a small delighted girl (at, naturally, the reindeer exhibit, where another child said what we were all thinking: "This place is stinky!").  And I saw a boy gently stroke the face of perhaps a sibling, an older, severely disabled child in a wheelchair.

It was strange to be at the zoo without the boys.  It was strange to be at the zoo with two childless adults, one past the childbearing years, without regret, having had no desire for and little interest in "rodents," and one younger who will surely welcome children into her world one day.  I wondered what kind of troop we seemed, what story we told as we marched along.  I hope it was one of mutual respect and care and delight.