Innocence

This thought has been bugging me for several years. Back when Philip Pullman, author of the His Dark Materials trilogy, was a hot and controversial author, I read an interview with him in which he talked about how he thinks people are too tied up in revering innocence. It's probably a stretch to lay the blame for connecting innocence solely to childhood at his feet, but he does do it. He feels people's tendency to over sentimentalize childhood means that people are afraid of sexuality and adulthood. And in fact, in his trilogy he restores balance to the world by the sexual awakening of his main character. It annoyed me immensely. (BTW, right up until that ending I thought they were brilliant books, even if the world view made me a bit sad.) ANYWAY! That's not even my main point.

Yesterday I was watching Abby dance on a little stretch of green in a gas station parking lot because she just wasn't ready to get back into the van yet. As she twirled around and let her arms float where they wanted, of course she was the picture of innocence and AGAIN I thought of Philip Pullman and was annoyed. Her innocence stems from how safe she feels, not her lack of sexual knowledge/experience. She does not fear, really, any hurt or judgment. She acts out of her own desire, with no need to please an audience. No one has rejected her and she has done nothing really to make her want to reject herself. She is free to just Be.

I believe that is the innocence that we, adults, all have a longing for. We long for the safety we felt before we knew how life hurts, how we are capable of causing great hurt, how the world itself just hurts sometimes. I absolutely do NOT believe that most adults are longing for that time of life before they were sexual beings. That's just crazy talk.