Raising Buddha

“Who let’s their little kid climb up mountains?!”

That’s the kind of incredulous exclamation i often hear when i’m out with Miles.

Last week, Greg summed it up best, “Miles immediately goes to do the most dangerous thing possible wherever we are.”

He’s always been like that. I remember one day in our place in Chicago, he coudn’t have been more than 13 months. I don’t think he was even walking yet, but sure enough Nell and i got to talking for more then 10 uninterrupted seconds when suddenly we hear his little call for help. He’d lightning-crawled over to the changing table and scaled the three shelves towards its top only to find that he didn’t have the arm strength to hoist himself up nor the agility to lower himself back down.

When he was two and three, we used to hang out on the see-saw to practice our balance. Balance, he was learning, is central. It was the beginning of his ninja training.

That same year, at Nell’s house, he climbed up to a little window a few feet off the floor between her kitchen and living room. She looked up and told him that he was going to fall and should get down.

“I won’t fall Mama, I’m a ninja, I have gooooood balance.”

A few weeks past, we were walking, just the two of us, down Hook Mountain trail when he saw a stick he wanted down the little cliff ledge that leads to the Hudson River. He checked with me and then, supported by my approval, made his way down the rocks to the stick.

On his way back up he came to a precarious perch. He dropped the stick and continued to climb.

At the top, i asked him where the stick was to which he replied, “when i was on that rock, i felt off balance, so i needed both my hands, not just one. I can get another stick but i only have one head!”

Go Ninja!