Back to School

"Leave me alone".

The voice felt stronger in the deep silence that followed. It created ripples and echoed from the walls before it vanished into the streets behind the windows.

I stood there red-faced. Where did that come from?

I am not reading the magazines where Britney, Angelina, Tom or a possible soul of princess Diana screaming that there are more important issues in this world than their private life.

Also not watching a movie where the heroine is angry at her boyfriend for being late (usually it is the other way around, but fearing opposition I am making a small change in the script) or not remembering (right on target and it happens all the time, I admit) her birthday.

Can't be from the workplace where that stressed coworker is pleading others to concentrate more on their work and family than attendance and salary details of others.

Certainly not from the outside world, where millions of issues with possible simple solutions are getting complicated day by day, as I am standing inside my apartment, a world where I have created rules to avoid chaos. Rules I am comfortable with.

It came from a fourty month old little girl. Who did not know a piece of English ten months back. Who failed to talk a full sentence twenty months back. Who couldn't walk on her own thirty months back. And who was not even in this world another ten more months before. My daughter.

Waking up from the shock, I asked: "Why?". I was only telling her that she was putting the wrong leg on the right shoe.

Starting with a "because" she learned recently, she told, with all the innocence in this world, that it is the wrong shoe on the right leg.

The shock gave way to a smile. Of the three important women in my life, mother, wife and daughter, she teaches me most lessons these days.

I looked at her shoes again. To see whether I could get into those. And realized with regret that I would not.