When A Girl Loves a Boy

The sun turned the lake golden, that magical ending of the day, with the light reflecting off the neighboring cliffs, not quite the time for bats to circle for their evening feast of nectar and insects. Trax, my son's beagle/Jack Russel mix, got up from my feet where I sat at the shore. He jumped across several small boulders to stand on a concrete slab. 

Trax looked out across the water, eyes on his master.

After an hour of swimming and rock jumping, my son and two friends had taken to the cliffs.

My son climbed ten feet. Fingers stretched tall. Legs sought a foothold. Twenty feet. Thirty. The last rays of light reflected off his pale skin from where I stood across the lake, Trax again at my feet.

A couple packing up their fishing equipment turned to watch the ascent, a Pepsi can in the woman's hand.

We all watched silent. Blue dragonflies poised on tips of nearby cattails.

Forty feet.

My son stopped climbing. Rotated. His back pressed to rocky ledge.

He looked down.

Down, down, down to still waiting water.

No ropes tethered him--just fingers and toes on inches of rock ledge.

If you are a girl who loves a boy, you need to know this--Limits outside are meant to be explored.

Whether a toddler pounding on the coffee table to discover the sound it makes, or a student pushing to solve an algebraic formula, or an athlete trying to take one more second off his best time, the heart of a boy always wants to go higher, further, deeper, stronger.

If you are a girl who loves a boy, you also need to know this--Limits inside are meant to be challenged.

Whether it is fear or doubt or curiosity or a need to find a different self, the heart of a boy is forever stretching these boundaries.

You may be watching with heart in throat at the outside exploration of limits, but you need to know this, it is the inside limits, invisible, that are being tested.

On cliff ledge. In office meetings. At starting lines. At school desks.

Am I strong? Am I brave? Am I smart? Am I good enough?

These are the questions that boys of all heights ask.

My husband has a sign in his office:

Apples not falling far from trees apparently applies to cliff ledges. And chasm jumping.

I have often said that when it comes to adventure boys only get taller, that even when bodies give out, the heart of a boy cheers from sidelines and couches and parking lots and it is a girl, whose own legs stretch longer, who knows this.

My son jumped. Limits and boundaries pushed away, rushed past as he fell streamlined toward the water. Limbs held in tight, he made a small splash as he entered the lake.

Don't be afraid to take a big step if one is indicated.

Later, standing in a puddle of dripping water, with Trax jumping all tail and body wagging, the boy had only one question--

"Did you get any good pictures?"