Phosphorescence

by Julia Baird

THERE ARE SO MANY things I want to teach my son. To stand like a tree; to be true; to respect women as equal and also as magnificent, flawed, real human beings; to be kind; to understand the depths and shallows of the seas; to forgive fools; to carefully collect the good-hearted like shells on a beach; to find the part of the natural world that most brings him joy and explore every corner of it. To file his taxes on time and learn to breathe properly over and under water, to be humble, to fold things the right way because I still get it wrong, to scrub barnacles from friendship when they form, to love his family fiercely and never take them for granted. To find a purpose and honour it, to look for commonality with every person, to laugh at himself often, to hunt awe, to value silence and the discipline of logging off, to find ways to love his enemies, to learn to cook some things that make people happy, to eschew perfection, to seek the divine. To dance whenever possible, to keep walking in rain and sleet and snow, to learn self-reliance, to not waste a second on the leers of cynics or the jibes of hateful people, to endure, to run and meander and swim and travel and allow himself to make mistakes and be honest with everyone and himself. And to recognise that even in the madness, the toxicity, the decay and rot of the world, music is made, and played, and danced to.