Tag: Parents

Lightly Child, Lightly.

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I made a brief visit to see my parents…My father was in the backyard feeding the birds. I hesitated to disturb him but felt an urgency to see him and quietly slipped out back. He was standing at the end of the yard with his back toward me with arms outstretched. As I stood in silence the birds flew to him and covered him, as if a fresco from the painter Giotto’s life cycle of St. Francis of Assisi. I could feel the birds’ affection for him, not merely because he fed them, but because they were responding to his innate goodness. At that moment I had no doubt that he was of a hallowed tribe. Not a perfect man, nor had he produced any known miracle, yet he had the simplicity of a saint, and I the saint’s errant daughter. Somehow sensing my presence, he turned as the birds flew above him and looked at me. Hello doll, he said. Hello, Daddy, I answered.

— Patti Smith, Bread of Angels: A Memoir (Random House, November 4, 2025)

Notes:

Why some people become lifelong readers?

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The Stats:

  • ...about 53 percent of American adults (roughly 125 million people) read at least one book not for school or for work in the previous 12 months
  • …23 percent of American adults were “light” readers (finishing one to five titles per year)
  • ..10 percent were “moderate” (six to 11 titles),
  • …13 percent were “frequent” (12 to 49 titles),
  • …and a dedicated 5 percent were “avid” (50 books and up)
  • …about 20 percent of adults belong to the U.S.’s reading class. She said that a larger proportion of the American population qualified as big readers between the mid-19th and mid-20th centuries—an era of reading that was made possible by advances in printing technology and then, eventually, snuffed out by television.
  • …”urban people read more than rural people,” “affluence is associated with reading,” and “young girls read earlier” than boys do and “continue to read more in adulthood.”
  • “Introverts seem to be a little bit more likely to do a lot of leisure-time reading,”
  • …”children who grew up surrounded by books tend to attain higher levels of education and to be better readers than those who didn’t, even after controlling for their parents’ education.

As Willingham explains in his book Raising Kids Who Read, three variables have a lot of influence over whether someone becomes a lifelong reader – – read on here.

—  Joe Pinsker, from “Why Some People Become Lifelong Readers” (The Atlantic, Sept 19, 2019)

Photo: Pexels by Maël BALLAND

Lightly Child. Lightly.

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The trees you planted in childhood have grown too heavy. You cannot bring them along. Give yourselves to the air, to what you cannot hold.

— Rainer Maria Rilke, from “Sonnets to Orpheus, Part One, IV” in “In Praise of Mortality: Selections from Rainer Maria Rilke’s Duino Elegies

Notes:

  • Thank you Beth for poem at Alive on All Channels
  • DK Photo, Monday, October 16, 2023 @ 6:21am @ Cove Island Park. More pictures from that morning’s walk here.
  • Post Title & Inspiration: Aldous Huxley: “It’s dark because you are trying too hard. Lightly child, lightly. Learn to do everything lightly. Yes, feel lightly even though you’re feeling deeply. Just lightly let things happen and lightly cope with them.

Lightly Child, Lightly

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The truth? The truth about all this?… We’re doing the best we can, we really are. We’re trying to be grown-up and love each other and understand how the hell you’re supposed to insert USB leads. We’re looking for something to cling on to, something to fight for, something to look forward to. We’re doing all we can to teach our children how to swim. We have all of this in common, yet most of us remain strangers, we never know what we do to each other, how your life is affected by mine. Perhaps we hurried past each other in a crowd today, and neither of us noticed, and the fibers of your coat brushed against mine for a single moment and then we were gone. I don’t know who you are. But when you get home this evening, when this day is over and the night takes us, allow yourself a deep breath. Because we made it through this day as well. There’ll be another one along tomorrow.

—  Fredrik Backman, “Anxious People: A Novel” (Atria Books, September 8, 2020) 

Notes:

  • Fredrik Backman portrait by Casper Hedberg for The New York Times
  • Post Title & Inspiration: Aldous Huxley: “It’s dark because you are trying too hard. Lightly child, lightly. Learn to do everything lightly. Yes, feel lightly even though you’re feeling deeply. Just lightly let things happen and lightly cope with them.”

Lightly Child, Lightly

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Notes: