Dear Jessica Brennan,
Have you ever noticed that little girls hop? They skip, hop and boing around as though they have springs on their toes. The character of Tigger must have first been written as a little girl. When you see little girls walking together to school at least one is hopping. It seems to be part of their genetic code. If they are holding their Dad’s hand and going for a stroll, he is strolling and they are, you guessed it, hopping. They also skip down the sidewalk together or jump rope. All of this is a version of hopping.
Now before everyone starts on about how little boys have the right to hop too, yes I know that. In my experience though, little boys tend to race. Perhaps they are trying to duck and weave amongst all the hopping.
To be clear, girls don’t seem to mindlessly jump. No, hopping is a different thing than jumping. Little girls seem to hop because they aren’t yet quite enough in this world to be able to stay secured to the ground. It’s more of a flitting and lifting off that seems to happen. Perhaps they aren’t trying to hop up, but rather they are trying to get back down.
In any case, here is the real question.
When do girls stop hopping? At what moment do they become fused by gravity to the planet earth? Why don’t women hop? Do they get weighed down with responsibility or the weight of the world? I know some women who positively look like they will sink. I’ve looked that way myself.
I understand that most of us feel like we can’t hop to the office, or in the office. If you hop through Walmart they will ask you to leave, which is an excellent reason to hop through Walmart. (Let’s do that on Saturday). It seems much more acceptable to plod to work mired down by life’s hardships.
Is there a happy medium though between hopping and sinking? Perhaps gliding. Flowing along the earth over the bumps and into the dips, breezing past the obstacles like a leaf in a brook. In fact combining hopping with gliding, is well, soaring isn’t it? That’s all.
Boing, boing,
Love Mum xo
