More Musings on the Year

My son hasn't quite turned one yet...I've never celebrated anyone's one-year birthday, and quite apart from the fact that it's my own son, I'm awed by the importance of this event. A human being has experienced the world for one year--no more, no less.

We mark so much of what happens in our lives in terms of years--the specific year that something happened, as well as a year as a unit of time in which to accomplish something. "That was when I was twenty-two, young and foolish and ready to conquer the world"--"I well remember the year I was fifteen, how gruesome and glorious it was"--"Now that I'm fifty I'm ready to sink into life like a giant armchair, instead of like a rigid Bauhaus fashion statement"--"This is the year that I'll finally lose fifteen pounds and cut my hair in a bob."

So to think that someone, anyone, has passed through life for one year, and is now about to embark on his second...I don't know how to express it properly, but something about it makes me stop and reflect on how precious all our years are, however old and barnacle-encrusted we've become.

Babies and Metaphors

Just finished a contemporary novel, mostly about marriage and love--wonderful themes, but the novel was unsatisfying. I never felt that the characters were living, breathing people I could care about--in other words, I never suspended disbelief. And the novel didn't offer enough, in terms of its style, to make that lack of suspension enjoyable. The plot felt contrived, and the language was often stilted and bombastic.

I don't like the use of metaphors in most contemporary novels. I find that the metaphor's signifier often takes over and announces itself as the product of a writing workshop, not anything that the narrator or characters in the story might have actually said. For instance: in this particular novel, one of the characters dies. One of his internal organs fails, and "turned on him like a servant with a drawn dagger." The image has a certain drama and excitement; but taken in context, the metaphor is so overblown, so nineteenth-century Gothic, and has so little to do with the character and his actual death, that it wrenched me from the flow of the story; in my disgust I almost stopped reading the novel altogether.

Don't get me wrong, I do like wildly creative metaphors--if they suit the character being described, and the overall tone of the novel. Otherwise, it just becomes the kind of awkward straining for effect that calls attention to the author, not the characters or the story.

But this happens all the time in the contemporary novel, this use of metaphors that scream out, "Pay attention to me! Never mind about the story itself--it's all about me!" I thought it worked well in Mysteries of Pittsburgh because it suited the characters; and it works in some of Lorrie Moore's stories because she, like Michael Chabon, has a flamboyant style. It doesn't have much of a place, however, in most novels because it starts to feel like a story about oranges in which the word "rasberry" keeps showing up for no apparent reason.

Somehow this has something to do with babies.

I think because, in my discussion with my husband about this novel and the metaphor about the illness, I said, "That metaphor has no meaning whatsoever in the context of this story," and he responded, "Well, that doesn't surprise me. I don't think people are looking for meaning any more. They're just skating over the surface of everything. They're interested in appearances, not meaning." And that started me thinking (very late at night) about the kind of world my son is going to inherit when he's an adult. Are we passing through some sort of Baroque or Victorian era, where various forms of art have become so overly decorative, and the cultural language has become so encrusted with artificial meanings, that artists will have to rebel once again, as they did at the turn of the last century, and create new languages and forms--reinvent the wheel (or perhaps turn it into a cabbage)?

It's hard to generalize like this without sounding self-important. I'm no avatar for the new age in art. What it boils down to is, I want my son to feel connected to the flow of his life, and art is supposed to help him do that. I don't think most contemporary art helps much in this respect.

And this doesn't just apply to the babies of today...I wouldn't mind feeling that connection myself, and it's been a bit hard to find it and feel it, lately.

Kids, More Kids, Penguins, Architecture

Today the baby and I were at the Steinhart Aquarium with a friend and her one-year-old son...what a scene for strollers, babies and toddlers, moms and dads. It seemed like every other group of people included a child or children under the age of four. Yet today it wasn't a complete madhouse (unlike the last time I was there) because the crowd had thinned by the time we arrived, at around three in the afternoon.

Walking through the much-touted three-story greenhouse was enjoyable without the crush of people, but I was underwhelmed. Somehow I find that the architecture of the place overwhelms the greenery, and in the end I don't feel like I've been in touch with nature at all, just a pretty display with butterflies. Too much metal, glass, and bright lights. The baby loved watching the lights, as well as one particular bush where several many-hued butterflies had alighted for a few moments, slowly fluttering their gauze-like wings in a flirtatious pose. And he loved the penguins, especially when his mom imitated the flapping motion they make with their wings and said "Flap-flap" out loud. He smiled at the stuffed gorilla and the lions in the Africa exhibit. But both moms agreed--this place will enchant their sons to an exponentially greater degree when they're a year or two older. The main excitement for these kids--the Explorer's Cove, a playroom for toddlers and young children--was closed today, as luck would have it.

My impression of the Rainforest--that the architecture overwhelms the place--could be applied to most of the rest of the Aquarium as well. If it's a place that could be called the "state of the art" in aquarium design, as many claim, why do I feel so cut off from the wildlife? Except, perhaps, for those huge fish tanks, I don't feel any ability to lose myself in what I'm seeing. The old Aquarium, for all its limitations, gave me the feeling that I was traveling to those distant regions where these animals lived. I can't quite explain why that is...from what I remember, the layout of the place was much more straightforward and the lighting was more simply done; yet it was, somehow, a more peaceful and mysterious place. I've heard nothing but raves for this new version of the Aquarium, so I wonder if there's anyone else out there who feels as I do.

Evelyn Waugh Was Right...

...when he said, "To know and love another human being is the root of all wisdom."

It's for You

I've complained recently about how exhausted I am--and it's true, the night sleeping has slipped on his part, he's waking me up and keeping me up at 3 or 4 am, most days, for the last couple of weeks; and his nap schedule has gone haywire; and I've been wiped out every day for about three weeks (including a week of illness). However--

He's started to play "cell phone" with me, where I hand him his fake cell phone, he plays with it, then hands it back to me, with a playful glint in his eye. I put it to my ear saying, "Hello? Oh, it's a call for _______? Here, it's for you, it's the diaper man" and I hand the phone back to him. He smiles radiantly, and the game goes on for two or three repetitions.

Life is not all bad when your 11-month-old does something like hands you a cell phone so that you can "take a call" for him.

The Big One

As my baby approaches his first birthday, I'm terribly excited...and exhausted. He's just not sleeping well...as noted yesterday, various disruptions to his normal sleep patterns have occurred in recent weeks; and he might be transitioning to one nap a day (although it's hard to tell). At any rate, his naps are at varying times of the day and sometimes just half an hour in length, and he rarely sleeps through the night. And he's teething. And he's going through terrific separation anxiety. And, and, and...

Sleep deprivation during the first few months of a baby's life--that, they always tell you about. What they don't mention is how grueling baby care can be when the baby is older and for whatever reason, is once again waking you up at night, or not giving you much of a break during the day.

Be all that as it may...I also feel that I should celebrate everything, as the end of his babyhood approaches...even these grueling late nights and bleary-eyed days.

Mothers and Ambitions

Cleaning out the last scraps of memorabilia from my mother's garage yesterday (she died a year and a half ago), I came across a letter from my mother to my father's parents in Kansas. It has no date, but must have been written when I was about five or six, because she says, in her less than perfect English, that I had just started taking piano lessons, "but believe me she isn't much ambitious, once she practice and that all."

Yesterday I also heard a story on the NPR program "This American Life," about a mother who died of cancer when her daughter was 16. Before she died, this woman decided to write a series of letters to her daughter, to be read every year on her daughter's birthday, until the girl turned thirty. The daughter opened these letters every year with a mixture of dread, anger and happiness; in them, the mother dispensed advice such as (I'm paraphrasing), "Do not marry outside the Mormon faith" and "Don't hesitate to put any children you have in a good daycare; it's important for you to continue with your career, whatever you choose to be in life."

Both my mother's letter and this mother's letters to her daughter filled me with a mixture of irritation and longing. I remember how harsh my mother could be if she thought I was being lazy in certain areas of my life. And it was often commendable, her strictness. But sometimes it wasn't; sometimes it was just harsh, and left me feeling inadequate to deal with life in a number of ways.

Now that I'm attempting to fill the role of mother/protector/life counselor, what do I do? How do I walk that difficult line between strict yet fair discipline, and attempting to control or dominate this little person? How do I stop myself when I'm trying to impose my personal life choices and ambitions on my son?

Today has been so exhausting that I'm going to finish this post, then fall into bed, though it's only eight o'clock. (He's been sleeping poorly for a few weeks now--after being sick, and enduring seemingly endless days of sewer work, his sleep rhythms and ability to soothe himself to sleep have gone haywire.) A big part of me is just asking, how am I going to survive his toddlerhood? But another part of me knows that I have to think about these control issues, even when I'm exhausted...because I might be repeating some of my mother's mistakes even now.

For instance. When my son grabs at something in my hands, and instead of patiently telling him "No, that's not for you right now, Mommy needs to use it" or diverting his attention with another activity, I just yank it away from him--which happened a couple times towards the end of the day today because I'd lost patience with him--then I'm exerting an illegitimate, semi-violent authority over him, as well as squelching his joy in my presence and dampening his natural curiosity. I hated myself, and hate myself, for doing that today.

Parents cannot lose patience. Period. We all do; but somehow, even when we do, we have to do it in a measured way. And as for ambition--we cannot force our children to become ambitious in any given area of their lives. If that ambition isn't there to begin with, it might mean the child is not meant for that activity (as proved to be the case with my piano-playing).

The last thing I want to remember about yesterday, though, has nothing to do with control. I was walking upstairs at my mother's house and visiting her bedroom, for perhaps the last time before the house is sold; a huge wave of sadness and longing washed over me as soon as I set foot in that cherished space. Though the room now contains no furniture, I could see her lying on her back on the bed, propped up with pillows, reading. The entire room neat as a pin; the bedspread an equal distance from the floor on all sides of the bed. I could hear her voice--with its lively yet gentle tones, welcoming me, gesturing at me to come join her on the bed. She was a lovely person and a wonderful mother, with her less-than-noble moments, like all of us...I miss her terribly.

6.3 Million

A recent New York Times article, "Millions of People Face Years without Jobs," reported that 6.3 million people in the United States have been out of work for six months or longer...at least, that's how many people show up in the government records. Who knows how high the number really is.

However inaccurate it might be, this number, 6.3 million, is twice as high as it was in the last serious economic downturn, in the early 1980s. It's higher than it has been since 1948, when the government started keeping records on this.

The same article also reports that the current recession has had an especially severe impact on women ages 45 to 64, who are entering the ranks of the long-term unemployed in particularly high numbers. This sent a chill up my spine, of course; I've only been fitfully employed for years now, and don't know what the situation will be like when I re-enter the job market (which could occur in about six months--one year at the most). And I recently turned 45.

But I don't want to emphasize the personal impact of the article. The ramifications of this long-term unemployment problem for the entire country and for every citizen in it are enormous. Millions of people are falling into poverty, and they will receive minimal or no support from the social safety net. Actually, if a safety net still exists, it has been ripped up so severely during the last thirty years of Reaganomics, Clintonomics and Bushonomics that it shouldn't be called a "net" any more; it's more like Silly String at this point (and it's landing in the faces of the long-term unemployed).

Do I sound like a bleeding-heart liberal? I can imagine some people reading the article and saying, "There are thousands of charities out there--surely these people will survive, and that's what they deserve because they didn't retrain themselves for a job where the demand is high, like health care." Those people have never been brutally kicked out of a job, not because of their own incompetence, but because someone higher up dropped the ball in some major way and the company fell apart, or because of some major societal force beyond their control. Those people have never experienced hunger for days on end, or if they have, it was when they were young and could fight ferociously for a better rung on the ladder. Those people simply need to wake up to the reality of this place and time. And it doesn't take a bleeding-heart liberal to say that, or to see that things are particularly bad for the long-term unemployed right now, and for everyone who might be impacted by the rise in hunger, desperation, and psychical or physical violence that are bound to result from this problem. In other words, everyone.

What we can do about that is another question entirely; and once again, I find myself sorely lacking in good answers at the moment. A re-working of the entire social fabric of the country is what seems to be required. A pipe dream? But maybe a lot of people are dreaming of such a thing.

Music Mania

My son has developed a passion for a few CDs, as I noted earlier--mostly French chansons. But he will listen for a while to almost anything--Mozart symphonies, Harry Belafonte, Stephane Grapelli...of course, what those three musicians have in common is that their music is, for the most part, far from melancholy. He definitely seems more attracted to the cheerful end of the musical spectrum, whatever genre of music we're talking about. Bouncy rhythms and bright instruments hold his interest for several minutes; a lovely recording of Erik Satie piano pieces left him rather indifferent, though he didn't seem to mind it too much.

What entrances me while he listens is the bright-eyed, focused look on his face; he stares at the stereo and puts his finger in his mouth, partly from teething, partly as a gesture of concentration. He crouches at the edge of the sofa, his hands resting on the arm or reaching for something on the little table beyond, his feet pressed against my leg; I'm holding him around the waist in case he decides to do a header over the edge of the sofa and onto the floor (he's attempted it a few times).

I don't know if this fascination of his will translate into a profound interest in music later in his childhood; it's much too early to say. But if I can gush for a moment--it's wonderful to see him sit there, his whole being focused on something as simple as a lovely melody.

Grace, Continued

I posted on the subject of grace a couple of months ago, I believe...but grace (doing the right thing) is not enough. Courage is also necessary. Courage involves doing the right thing when it's very difficult. For instance, being pleasant and helpful to someone you find irritating, when it's the right thing to do.

All of this is perfectly obvious. But it's hard to put into practice. And how do we teach these qualities to our children? All this focus on material objects, obtaining things, becoming skilled at various mental and physical pursuits, being a top student, and so forth...aren't we missing the boat a little bit, by not showing them how to become decent, graceful, courageous human beings, before we teach them anything else?

For instance. Today my babysitter watched as I put away a can of sugar-free soda in the refrigerator--it contains Splenda, not the more dangerous Aspartame. She commented in passing that it was one of her favorite sodas. I stupidly continued with what I was talking about without offering her a can. Later today I thought about that. It's true that we were talking about various things at the time, and I was distracted. But what is the point of life if I can't slow down enough to offer a damn can of soda to someone who is obviously interested in it? In that instance, I wasn't showing even the minimal amount of grace required for the situation.

So. How do I teach these life-skills to myself? Starting with grace, and working my way up to courage? How do I learn them so that they become second nature? Perhaps those are the more pertinent questions.

Stress Relief

My husband's primary method of relieving stress, since the baby was born, is to read books about hunting, guns and war. I have no good method except long baths and falling asleep as early in the evening as possible. Yes, we're an odd couple. But it works.

Faraway Places

When I was about six or seven years old, I often visited "The Hill" with my friend, whom I'll call MC. It was a little strip of raised earth next to the fence which bordered the local Elks Club chapter's picnic facility. It measured about one hundred feet long, three feet high, and five feet in width (from the fence to the sidewalk). Located at the end of our street, it beckoned to us as one of the only "wilderness areas" within our reach. Large, graceful pine trees on the other side of the fence shaded our Hill, and the dirt we sat on was covered with pine needles, making it a comfortable place to stay for long stretches of time.

And stay we did, for whole afternoons, although I don't have the foggiest recollection of what we did there. What I remember is that it seemed huge to us, this little strip of land; and we felt it was a secluded, private retreat, someplace created just for us. (Certainly, we were the only ones who visited it.) It was our own faraway place, the kind that only young children create, and the kind they never forget.

I thought about this today, quite suddenly, as I was driving my son around for half an hour to let him continue his nap (yes, I did this again--as stated in an earlier post, I'm not proud of burning fossil fuels so my son can sleep, but I can honestly say that it's only happened a handful of times since he was born). I felt running through me again, for the first time in ages, that sense of seclusion, protectedness and adventure that MC and I felt on The Hill, and one or two other special, half-secret places. I then prayed to some unknown god, in the hope that my son will find such a place himself and enjoy it for years and years--perhaps with an equally dear friend at his side.

The Presidio and Thou

On Valentine's Day, the husband, baby and I took a stroll through the heart of the Presidio. After wandering around a bit (we'd forgotten our map) we found the Visitor's Center, went in and oriented ourselves, then headed off on the Ecology Trail, which starts just behind the Visitor's Center and climbs up through a small pine forest, to a point overlooking the Bay and the northern part of the City. A lovely short walk, a bit difficult with a normal sidewalk stroller, but we managed--and the baby slept peacefully the whole time.

Talk about a hidden part of San Francisco: we were alone on that trail from beginning to end. I knew that the network of short trails in this former military post had expanded markedly in recent years, but didn't know just how pleasant and secluded they were until we found ourselves exploring one of them with no one else in sight, even though it was Sunday. When we left the Ecology Trail we stumbled on some old military housing; some of those brick houses, probably built in the nineteenth century, remind me of houses in the Midwest and the East Coast; they look like no other houses in San Francisco, which also lent to the atmosphere of "otherness" and isolation that I felt throughout our walk. Then we actually stumbled on a path called Lover's Lane...overall, not a bad way to celebrate the day.

When the New Becomes Old

When does the new in a particular art movement become old and irrelevant? When, for instance, did the Dada gesture lose its force as an artistic statement? "It never had any," some would say. But Duchamp defined Dada as simply the act of raising the question, "What is art?" and said that such an act was important and relevant in any place and time. I would agree...but I would add that even the act of raising the question "What is art?" can lose its freshness, its relevance.

I don't suppose there's any precise and predictable moment when an art movement can be identified as irrelevant. Perhaps it's something like asking, when will your child become tired of a favorite toy? I've noticed that my son has grown tired of most of his toys and books lately. He also seems to crave new experiences--trips to unknown stores and homes, unknown wilderness terrains. If, as I said in yesterday's post, "play" is an activity in which one does something to discover what new thing will happen, my boy knows just about everything that will happen with all of his toys, so the sense of discovery is missing for him these days when he plays with them.

Perhaps an art movement dies when the sense of discovery is missing for all of its participants and spectators. On the other hand, we do not crave the absolutely new, all of the time. My son likes to return home after an excursion; he likes his daily routine; he likes many of the old books, still. And we still do enjoy, after all, the Pantheon and the Mona Lisa, even now when the particular art movements with which they were associated have long since faded away.

Kant probably had it right when he talked about the sublime and the beautiful, where the word "sublime" signifies the incommensurable (if I can brutally paraphrase his writings) and "beautiful" indicates perfect harmony and order. Every art movement has to begin with something incommensurable or unfathomable, then settle into some kind of orderly arrangement; that's perhaps the nature of all life and growth. So perhaps the real question is: when is it time for the incommensurable to make an appearance? In life, and in art?

Play, Modernism and the New

Play is an exploratory activity that seeks to raise new questions. Or, to put it more simply: play involves doing something to see what will happen.

This is perhaps why the Modernist movement in art remains so vital. Modernism raised new questions about form that are still being answered. Modernists played with form so rigorously because the old forms (like most of the 19th century social standards) had become desperately stale and irrelevant.

What are the questions being raised today in art? I'm not sure. I'm not sure many contemporary artists are even thinking about how to "make it new," as Pound put it.

When I see my son pick up an unknown object and examine it, with that smile of fascination that only babies adopt so readily and so un-selfconsciously, I'm reminded of the excitement of discovery through art, all over again.

Mothers and Souls, Part Two

The baby and I went to the De Young Museum yesterday. A spur-of-the-moment late-afternoon trip that worked out pretty well. We did not venture into the King Tut exhibit, the museum's big attraction these days; it just seemed too expensive ($32.50) for a quick stroll with a baby.

I hadn't been to the De Young since they remodeled the place, except for two poetry readings in the auditorium. I have to say that I don't particularly like most museums--the sterility, the sense that the art is being held captive in all that white space...the sense that nothing is breathing, nothing is vital. This act, too, of walking into various galleries and absorbing ten paintings or sculptures or artifacts all at once, then moving on to the next room, just feels like a strangely empty activity to me. I never remember ninety-five percent of what I've seen. If I have to go to a museum, I prefer seeing an exhibition of one painter, or one small group of like-minded artists; that makes more sense to me than seeing a mish-mash of things in one fell swoop. Or I like small museums where there's a particular theme, or a particular sensibility at work. I loved the Picasso Museum in Paris, and the Peggy Guggenheim museum in, where was it, Venice? The De Young is like any big museum, one moves from Amish quilts to the tribes of Oceania to American modernist painting in the blink of an eye.

Having griped about museums--the baby and I both enjoyed the Africa and Oceania exhibits at the De Young; I would return to the museum just to see those two rooms. I also enjoyed Irving Petlin's large painting, "The Burning of Los Angeles" (I think that was the title), an impressionistic piece with barely discernible human figures amidst a tumult of yellow and brown blotches of paint; and a work by an artist whose last name was Cleary, I believe, a three-dimensional piece entitled "Mother, Springhouse" from his "Oakland Plantation Series." It shows a black woman in the attire of a nineteenth-century slave, cradling a white baby in her arms; the face of the baby has opened, like a door on hinges, to reveal the face of a black baby, perhaps the woman's own. They're standing on top of a large building with plantation-style columns in front. Standing a little bit lower than the mother, on either side of her, are two white girls with sinister smiles on their faces, holding switches in their hands. It's a striking piece, more beautifully wrought than I can describe here.

Those two artworks have that sense of urgency about them that I was describing in an earlier post. I believe that art has to impose itself on your psyche in some way, or it's just a matter of fooling around and being entertained, for both the artist and the viewer/listener. I believe that most postmodernist art is just about entertainment, in that sense. Of course, one person's urgency is another person's entertainment.

For instance: at the Pompidou museum in Paris last October, one exhibit featured a video of a woman spinning a hula-hoop around her waist; the hula-hoop was made out of barbed wire. The camera kept zooming in on her torso, to show that the hula-hoop was actually leaving scars on her skin. Certainly, a piece that has shock value, and that lingers in the memory. But this is not what I mean by "imposing itself on your psyche."

Perhaps I can describe it as art that leaves question marks in the air, versus art that attempts to decide everything for us. The image of the woman with barbed-wire hula hoops leaves nothing undecided. Mid-twentieth century American culture was bad, it was violent, it left scars on women's psyches. So we can reflect on that for an instant and move on to the next thing. But this image of a black female slave holding a white baby whose face opens up to reveal a black baby underneath? It troubles the psyche because one realizes, staring at this image, that much about the legacy of slavery remains unresolved in our culture, in ourselves. it raises a multitude of questions. It's an image of tenderness--the woman is cradling the white baby, after all--and of violence.

Art that can trouble us in this way is worth seeing--even if there's only one piece in the whole museum.

Mothers and Souls

By being so close to my son, by being so preoccupied with all the details of his daily life--am I perhaps the person least likely to witness and understand the development of his soul? That mysterious process whereby he becomes uniquely himself and no other? Or, more than that--that process whereby he will reach beyond himself, and touch the world in some profound way?

As a mother, I worry so intensely about his coughs, his cries, his sleeping, his bodily functions of all kinds, and I marvel so intensely at his little gestures and words, his smile, his delighted laugh, his frowns of concentration--everything, in fact--but just because of this, am I not in danger of ignoring, or even stifling, that part of him that must develop underground, secretly, hidden from everyone?

When I go to him in the morning and he's already standing up in his crib, holding onto the side and gazing at the door anxiously, when I see his quick smile then feel his soft, chubby cheek against mine as I lift him to me--perhaps then, I do feel his secret, innermost self, for just a moment. But I know that as a mother, I'll never have full access to it. Well, I suppose no one will--we are all lonely creatures, in essence...but perhaps this is what being a mother is: no one will ever want to understand his soul more than I do, and no one poses more of a threat to it than I do.

Play, New Ideas, Modernism

Two posts for the price of one today...

"We seek new ideas through play," the leader of the playgroup said yesterday, as part of her talk on the subject of play. This started me thinking about art and creativity. Then, reading the Cage book (Silences), I started thinking about Modernism...what was the impetus behind Modernism, except a huge desire to inject more play into a more and more rigid, ordered society? And yes, every art movement in history exists in part because the status quo becomes too rigid, too static...every art movement moves towards play...but this is perhaps especially true for the Modernists. The best of the late 19th and early 20th century writers, painters, musicians, dancers and architects were acutely aware of the stultifying effects of industrial society, and worked mightily (worked, but really, played) to circumvent those effects.

But where does that leave us? Post-Modernism, with its emphasis on pastiche, satire and performance, falls short for me because it is (despite appearances) not all that playful--especially when compared to a William Carlos Williams or Charles Zukofsky poem, Cage's Music of Changes, Magritte's paintings, Djuna Barnes' Nightwood, Jean Toomer's Cane. The best of the Modernists invented new forms almost every time they created; in other words, they played, ferociously.

Play

At yesterday's play/discussion group, the leader gave everyone a handout listing all the various benefits of play. The list would make anyone, even an old curmudgeon like me, want to add more play to her life. Among the benefits of play: "Play lets children discover for themselves their most vital talents and knowledge." "Play, because it is fun, leads to creativity and curiosity." "Darwin played in the garden collecting leaves, and on the beach with shells; that started his curiosity in evolution."

It's always a delight to see my child discover new things, then focus on them with the intensity of a laser beam, with that natural absorption that babies have, and that many young children manage to retain in spite of the too-numerous distractions contemporary life throws at us. And it fills me with wonder whenever I see his face light up for a particular image in a storybook, or when he starts giggling at some silly thing his parents are doing. Play = surprise and discovery.

I started thinking about play so much, in relation to my own life and interests, that I couldn't sleep last night. So I went to the living room and pulled out a book that I've only glanced at--have been meaning to read it more thoroughly--John Cage's Silence. One of the first passages I came to:

"And what is the purpose of writing music? One is, of course, not dealing with purposes but dealing with sounds. Or the answer must take the form of paradox: a purposeful purposelessness or a purposeless play. This play, however, is an affirmation of life--not an attempt to bring order out of chaos nor to suggest improvements in creation, but simply a way of waking up to the very life we're living, which is so excellent once one gets one's mind and one's desires out of its way and lets it act of its own accord."

I agree with everything he says except the very last part--one's desires and mind are part of the whole; they do not necessarily clash with "the very life we're living." But sometimes, it's true, we cannot hear past our desires, we cannot hear the environment that surrounds us...the sickness of Western industrial and post-industrial society stems from this (if one wants to be grandiose about it)...

At any rate, both the instructor/nurse at the playgroup, and John Cage, are onto something important. Play is important. Play is necessary. And yes, as a new mother, I feel sometimes that play--adult play, of all kinds--has been thrown aside, for this time-consuming business of raising a playful, joyful human being. More on that in a future post, undoubtedly.

Sewer Miracle

Just as my son was drifting off to sleep an hour ago, they started...the Sewer People, right outside our house. The machine that digs up the street (don't know what it's called, but it makes a hell of a racket) started pounding away. But fifteen minutes later, a miracle...as we watched from the window, the machine suddenly spurted a huge amount of oil onto the street and completely broke down.

Should I thank Hypnos? Now my son is sleeping blissfully, or semi-blissfully because he's also coughing a lot...it's a small miracle, but much appreciated...but now they're back, I hear them outside...here we go again.

Vegetating

I must admit that I have practically nothing to write about today...and in a way that's good. It was an utterly peaceful day with nothing but a little extra coughing from my son to cause any worries.

We did very little today; I organized various papers (as he followed me and "re-organized," i.e. scattered, everything I was organizing); we played in the living room; he crawled around and stood against the cabinets as I cleaned the kitchen and dining room; he crawled around a little bit on our tiny patch of lawn as I pulled weeds; we listened to music; we went to the grocery; he ate, a lot. He only took one long nap, this morning (and no, I didn't panic, in spite of what I wrote yesterday), and I made phone calls and organized a bit more as he slept.

The normalcy is a bit stultifying, it's true. But it's also a relief after the upheavals of last week.

And it won't last long. Tomorrow, the city is digging up our sewer line and repairing it, right in front of our house. It will continue for at least three days...I'm worried, of course, about the effect on my baby's naps. But if worst comes to worst, I'm going to take him on more strolls for the next three days; or he'll nap in the playpen downstairs. We'll get through it.

Militant Moms

Piggy-backing on yesterday's post about the difficulty of scheduling a playdate with seven different moms because of our babies' varying nap times: it seems to me that many new moms start to protect their little ones' sleep with the fury of a mother possessed, once they realize how important it is for an older baby to sleep through the night and to take regular, uninterrupted naps. I know that my whole day is built around the morning and afternoon naps: I hardly ever schedule something for those times. And I do get upset when a dog is barking loudly in the street, or someone makes a loud noise, just at that moment when the baby is falling asleep or is passing through a lighter sleep stage. Yes, napping is a big, big deal, for moms and babies. And it's not because it's the one time of the day when I get a significant break. It's because there's such an obvious difference in the mood of a baby who's sleeping well both day and night.

But is it possible to become too militant about the whole thing? Yes...I'm sure that for my family, I've crossed the line a few times, by shushing them too strenuously on occasion, when the baby is napping. Or I've stressed myself out too much by worrying unnecessarily when my baby only slept forty minutes instead of a full hour. But I can't say that I'm freaking out every time my baby's nap is interrupted. I don't think I've crossed the line and become truly militant yet...though I might have to check with my family again on that one.

Scheduling Moms

My older mothers' group still meets regularly, but it has become comically difficult to find a regular day and time to meet. It's not because we all have demanding jobs--none of us is working at the moment. It's because of conflicting baby nap times, and conflicting playgroup schedules. The babies range in age from six months to almost one year, which is part of the problem--younger babies nap more frequently during the day. But among the older babies, a wide variation in nap times still exists.

Spending the last hour trying to find the perfect meeting time to accommodate all the mothers and their little ones has me feeling frazzled, and reminds me why it's both good and bad to start a group. Actually, starting a group is almost always a blast; maintaining a group is what usually gets a bit sticky.

Destruction and Invention

My little guy is quickly learning how to take things apart, combine objects which do not usually go together, and in general, wreak havoc and destruction wherever he goes. Yesterday at the library, he stood at the bookshelves in the children's room and quickly pulled books from the shelves, one after the other. I let him do this for several minutes, but he still cried in frustration when I pulled him away from this engrossing activity. He does this sort of thing all over the house: at our bedroom nightstands, at the kitchen table, in the bathroom (we cannot leave him alone with the toilet paper).

Destruction is the first step towards invention. (Or, if one looks at it from a modernist/dadaist point of view: destruction IS invention...at least, in periods of great social upheaval.) And it seems that my budding avant-garde creative genius is well on the way towards his first efforts at invention, because he's already perfected the art of destruction at the tender age of eleven months.

To IVF or Not to IVF...Is That the Question?

A front-page article in today's Chronicle looked at a couple who chose to throw a fundraising party to help pay for their in vitro fertilization procedures. They're also asking people to donate online if they can't make it to the party. The mother is 38; in the article she talks about her ticking biological clock. The couple has known each other since 2006.

I'm wondering a lot of things after reading this. At the Chronicle's web site (sfgate.com), people are sneering at the couple for trying to raise money online, both from friends and from strangers, for a procedure which is elective and does not involve a life-threatening illness. I agree that it seems a bit awkward, even slightly offensive; but on the other hand, if a good friend of mine threw a party like this, I would not condemn her, and I would probably donate something (without attending the party). I don't like the fact that strangers can also donate--who wants a stranger to fund one's efforts to give birth?

But my main problem with what this couple is doing is that it seems premature to try IVF, if the mother is only 38. Why aren't they trying to conceive in the usual way, for at least a few more years? They've only known each other for a few years, which probably means that they've only been trying to have a child for two years. That's not much time, compared to a lot of couples. Having said that--it's possible that the couple has more fertility problems than were revealed in the article.

Re: the oddness of asking for money on the Web: it's bound to become more and more common. It indicates a further blurring of boundaries between public and private in our Internet-crazed society, and perhaps, a coursening of social relations as well. But is it also a way to strengthen communities and bring good friends closer together? Perhaps; if handled very, very carefully. But I don't see the Internet replacing a good phone call, a good face-to-face chat over coffee, a walk in the park, all those things where you can at least hear the tone of someone's voice. And in fact--I vote for less Internet communication in general...but my ballot's already blowing in the wind.

Perfect Calm

After four days of a feverish and miserable little boy, a coughing, exhausted mom, an equally exhausted husband, and mostly rain and gloom outside--the baby's fever is gone and he's sleeping like a champion, the mom is still coughing but a little less tired after one almost-decent night's sleep, the dad is getting back on track with his own sleep, and the rain is--still here. But having a healthy, happy baby makes everything else feel like sunshine and roses.

Favorite Songs

As I'm nearly brain-dead at the moment, and my husband has started watching a great movie ("The Sorrow and the Pity") and I'd like to join him for at least a few minutes before crashing in bed--I'll just mention something briefly. My son's favorite music up until now is all in French--French children's songs, the Putamayo children's album in French, and Charles Trenet singing some of his classics. I'm not sure why this is. But I think it's simply because these are the best song albums we have. The melodies and arrangements are always original, with attention to detail; and every phrase paints a different picture. I'm not, I swear, partial to French music in any way, even though my husband is French. Now, au lit...after a little sorrow and pity.

Life through Purple-colored Glasses

Being a new mom, even, an old new mom, is wonderful. It is also, at times, massively time and energy-consuming. But everyone knows that; even non-parents can imagine all that.

What is somewhat surprising is the degree to which one starts to see everything through a colored lens of some sort. I cannot think of any activity that I might wish to engage in, any activity whatsoever, without thinking about how it relates to my child. I can't even have a conversation with anyone without some thought of my son entering my mind.

What does this mean? I do feel, at times, that I'm seeing the world through purple-colored glasses. And yes, as jazzy as it feels, sometimes, just sometimes, it can be a little irritating.

A Perfect Storm

Writing this very quickly, as I don't think I'll have a chance to post later today. After a rough night, the baby and I went to the doctor's this morning--were told that he has a virus of some sort, and it will probably last a few more days. I'm not feeling all that splendid myself; an old bronchial problem. My husband was called in for possible jury duty today. "The perfect storm," someone said, when I described the situation on the phone. As I do my best to tend to a feverish child (though I often start hacking away at the wrong moments, upsetting him even more), I do feel like some sort of outrageous storm has blown through this household, turning our quietly happy routine upside down. Life can become hellish on the turn of a dime. But it's not quite that bad--yet; the baby is sleeping peacefully at the moment. I should do the same.