Downstairs I hear singing “Happy Birthday to you, happy birthday to you. . . ”  This is the day you were born.  You are alive.  This tiny being coming into itself.

Today at the Danube River –we stop on a break from our long ride, to dip our feet in water; I want to feel the cool water on my toes, to say –I did this, right here, right now.  Little girls play, and I wish I could direct the scene: Get out of the way!–let me capture this –please let me capture this moment.  One little girl leads the other, takes her by the hand.  They have plastic cones that they fill up with water, venturing out into the river to fill the cones and then cart them back to the beach where they pour the water in a larger bucket –over and over and over again they do this.  They are three.  The leader sheds her clothes and there she is: her cute little bottom trotting out to the river and back again and back again.  A beautiful child in time.  I want to zoom in, to try to stop this moment, to hold it here and now.   I resist the urge –in what world is it okay for a stranger to take a picture of a little girl running naked into the river?  I have missed it, missed what was here all along.