Marie Curie?

What makes some people careful, focused, and quiet; others brash and loud?  

I took Bella to the Oregon Museum of Science and industry. It was Martin Luther King Day in the USA, so schools were closed, and I had the notion that some special program or video might be scheduled, honoring Dr. King. Not only was I wrong about that (not even a poster mentioned his name), but the place was mobbed. 

Some children squeal, scream, and wave their arms while running recklessly from one activity to the next. Some retreat and hide. Some engage in a solo activity. Some form gangs: running, shoving, throwing things, stepping on babies and toddlers. Who can get to the other side of the room fastest? Who can collect the most toys? Who can throw the furthest? Who can hit the most people? 

I noted the adults. Some are mentally and emotionally absent, continually texting or scrolling their phones, unaware and uninterested in the children. Some coach from the sidelines, “Don’t run!” “Quit that!” “Hit him back!” Others are “helicopters,” directing and intervening constantly in children’s play. Some take photographs. What a ship of fools we all are.

Are the quiet children introverts? Are the noisy ones extroverts, or is there something else at work? Playing alone with blocks, quiet children build cities until a marauder careens into their world and smashes it. They make sand dunes till another kicks sand in their face. They pour water from one vessel into another until someone slaps the water with both hands and splashes water into everyone’s eyes. I watched Bella’s patience and her curiosity about the other children, as if they were some other species than herself, and I thought of Adrienne Rich’s poem “Power,” about Marie Curie. The last line is, “her wounds came from the same source as her power.”