We are walking together. Hand in hand. Me and my youngest daughter.
A forty-something year old and a four year old.
It's Shabbat morning and we're walking from our home towards our synagogue. The walk is about ten minutes, but the heavy snow slows us down. A new thick layer has just fallen last night. Both of us are bundled up warmly.
We have begun from the same point and we're heading to the same destination, but along the way our routes are diverging.
I am determined to choose the fastest, easiest course to our location. She chooses the most enjoyable one, relishing in every nuance along the way.
I stride purposefully and quickly, huddled in my coat, impatiently asking her to hurry along. She is delaying, frolicking, jumping and giggling. She savors the outdoors and experiments with the snow with her gloved hands and booted legs. Time constraints are clearly not a part of her agenda.
I direct my daughter to a well trodden path. I am looking to follow in other's footsteps—to trace the paths that those ahead of me have already tried and tested. She, on the other hand, delights in stepping where the snow has just fallen and is freshest. She is intrigued by her unique imprints and by forging her own new path where no one has stepped.
As we turn the bend, I ask her to join me along the cleared sidewalk, where the trek is least taxing, where the path is smoothest. Yet she is determined to climb the highest mountains and snow beds along the way. She embraces the exertion with joy. And the victory of reaching the peaks and standing tall in victory is a sufficiently intoxicating reward.
As we walk, ever so slowly, she points out to me the many sparkles in the snow. To her, these are precious gifts to behold, diamonds glistening in the sunlight. To be honest, I have barely noticed these shimmers. They have disappeared in my view of the encompassing dull whiteness, as I stride quicker and quicker.
We are walking along the very same route, my young daughter and I. But our paths are diametrically divergent.
Not literally but figuratively.
Maybe it's the four decades that are between us that cause each of us to veer towards a different direction, and to see reality through a different lens. Or maybe she is experiencing the joy and challenge of life while I am merely trudging through it.
It was a relatively short walk.
But maybe along the way, there was something that a forty-something year old learned from the innate wisdom of a four year old.
