Excerpt from "The Wild Marsh" by Rick Bass

Today, when surrounded by the chittering of newbie parents, I often recall what it was like to be childless and in similar company - the sense of being trapped, cornered, ensnared in unwanted conversation, and providing the customary head-nods to show sympathetic agreement despite having no understanding nor interest in the trials of parenthood. Good times.

Of course, having a three year-old of my own now, I can appreciate both circumstances. I understand the sense of responsibility one inherits when sent home from the hospital with a tiny being of your own make-up, just like I understand the single guy's disinterest.

I have never have been able to put into words this change in perception regarding parenthood, however, as effectively and artistically as Rick Bass in an excerpt from his collection of essays entitled, "The Wild Marsh."

"How such knowledge saves a person I can't quite be sure, but I felt rescued, felt as if I had passed completely through that thin curtain and into some finer land in which the self dissolved and another was born. And I still feel that way, too, anytime I look at either of my daughters, and I know that other parents feel that same way - I have heard them speak of it, had in fact heard such things being stated even before I became a parent, though in those earlier days, such discussions, such statements, had held no meaning for me and had the quality of sound of a radio playing faintly in another room, with the language of the radio's music identifiable but the individual words, and their message, indistinguishable."