An extract from my winning letter in Oprah’s O magazine
Jill Scott’s article [How an artist connects with her song - September 2005] did it for me. Maybe its because I went through same thoughts after I became a father.
Since birth, my son Ethan enjoys lying on me with an ear close to my chest.
I always wondered why? Maybe it felt like a cushion since I have a hairy chest, I thought. He is four years old now and recently I discovered how intently he listened to my chest. Before I could ask him (telepathy?) he answered by saying: “Daddy, I can hear your heart dancing. I Love listening to your heart.”
I thought of Jill Scott who was certain the first thing she ever heard was the sound of her mother’s heart, a sure and unrelenting rhythm that was both life-sustaining and calming. She says she hears a symphony in the click-clack of heels on a pavement, the rat-tat-tat in the conversation of friends, the wind in her ears and the children at play.
The prophet Kahlil Gibran wrote: “Your children are not your children. They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself. In a way I believe that this is exactly what happened when he listened to my heartbeat. As a poet I believe the heart is an instrument and a source of life’s longing for itself; it helps us to tune in to the beat of the world.
Selwyn Milborrow
