20 Weeks Old
Dear Bean,
You are a 20 week old bean today. That means you’re five months old. Where did the time go? Holding you tonight, in the big white armchair in the livingroom, with your face against mine, I could hardly imagine you as the little grunty thing you were, newborn.
Today you went for your first nap in the running stroller. I ran all the way to the park by the water, three miles from home–and back. You slept the whole time, and then woke up when we were in our driveway, and gave me this sweet, sweaty grin.
You know how to do so many things now–like roll over from your tummy to your back. You look funny when you do this–you crane your head high and sort of rock back and forth like a drunk before flopping over. I imagine you must feel triumphant when you find yourself on your back all of your own volition. A little like a sea lion must feel upon galumphing his way back into the surf. Rolling over from your back to your tummy proves to be a bit trickier–though you’re working on it. You can roll side to side, but it’s still hard for you to get up enough momentum to roll ALL THE WAY OVER. But when you do, you grin and grin, even when your arms are stuck under your belly and you’re doing face plants into the carpet.
You also know how to grab ahold of your feet now–and put them in your mouth. This has become an obsessive pastime of yours. You LOVE your toes.
And you’ve discovered how to WHIMPER. I’m not sure if I’m a fan of this discovery–but you certainly are. You love the feeling of power you get when I put you down and you make these little huffy fussy noises and I COME BACK AND SMILE DOWN AT YOU and put your pacifier in your mouth…or…pick you up! I am sure there are millions of people out there who will say I am spoiling you, but I don’t believe it. I think our way of being together feels right and intuitive. And I think spoiling a baby is a bunch of crock. You are begining to communicate with your world, and I think that is exciting. Even when, like today at nap time, you just wanted to be with us so much that every time I put you down you’d fuss and look around frantically until I came and held you. But once I finally sat down with you and we rocked together in the quiet, cool bedroom, you fell asleep. And you took a lovely two hour nap and woke up smiling.
You can reach out with both hands and grab anything and everything that’s in front of you–and put it in your mouth. You’ve tried watermelon (you LOOOVE IT) and banana and plums. Your eye’s get huge when you taste something new, just like they get when you experience anything else for the first time. Like taking a shower with Daddy today, or seeing the grunting pigs at the farm last weekend.
You have also started to giggle, especially when I kiss your tummy or when Daddy puts you up his head and calls you “super bean.” You’re such a goof ball, such a ham–with your big, wet, gummy grin. It’s amazing to watch you grow, despite the moments where I feel worn out and totally sick of lugging your little hair-pulling self around.
Love,
Mommy
Procrastinate, write, repeat.
When I sit down to write, I immediately procrastinate. I start thinking about lists. I put my hair in a pony tail. I take my watch off. If I’m even the slightest bit hungry, like tonight, I’ll peruse the cabinets and the fridge, nibbling on bittersweet chocolate, fresh blueberries, lemonade. I’ll read the paper, circling workshops I’d like to attend (on writing, of course!), bluegrass concerts in the park, mommy-and-me yoga classes, and rock climbing refresher clinics. I’ll watch my marmalade and cream cat slink through her kitty door and sip water from her bowl, flicking at the water’s surface with a paw before drinking. I’ll talk to my husband about the Tour results, about my girlfriend, who’s breaking up with her boyfriend, and about plans for tomorrow. And soon, 10, 15, 20 minutes have passed. Usually during this time I’ll think of at least eight things I should google; I’ll upload pictures to my family’s web page; I’ll instant message with my sister.
When did I become this internally fragmented chatterbox? Running along the waterfront today with Bean in his stroller, I got to thinking about how self discipline and practice are the vital ingredients to success—as a writer and an athlete, both. Like doing sit ups (which are ALWAYS easier to think about than to do) writing well requires tremendous self-discipline. Yet if I write daily, it gets easier, until I’ve acquired a certain amount of momentum, like good karma, that keeps me moving forward faster and more accurately towards my goal. That’s partly why I started this blog. Good karma in the writing department. I need all I can get because I have some stories I need to write. Words haunt me, and I keep coming back to them over and over again like an addict. I realize I have put a great deal of passion and hope into the promise of words. Reading a well-crafted story makes me acknowledge that words author our perception of the world. Stories, the stories we all have to tell, shape our culture, and in turn our future.
So it is with some urgency and anxiety that I buck up against myself nightly—wanting to write, yet feeling incapable of doing so for a lack of internal discipline. I resent the babble of my mind:the easy slope of distractions. Yet, each day I must begin again. Sit down. Write. Keep writing. Until something happens. Until I reach the well water I’m looking for and the words show up: the right words, to tell some of the stories I’ve been needing to tell.
One hard piece I’ve been working on is about my father dying from pancreatic cancer three July’s ago. But each time I sink my teeth into it I’m totally overwhelmed. By the hugeness of who he was as a person (among other things he was a: priest, pilot, Air Force Intelligence agent, silverware salesmen, and an architect), and by the vastness of my grief at loosing him. He was my compass: always truing me towards my own inner North: helping me to hear my voice, tease out my thoughts, forcing me to follow ideas through to the end. When I talked with him (we’d spend hours up late at night talking) I learned something of the process of developing original thought. Our conversations were as close to Socratic as I’ve gotten with anyone, and always very weighty. We talked about epistemology, and God, and ethics, and St. John, and the mysteries of dying and reincarnation and language. We talked about archetypes and myths and karma. Big stuff. Deep stuff. Stuff that nourished my soul and made my heart race with excitement. When we talked I felt close to the substance of ideas—to the universal truths behind them. When we talked together (up well past midnight, sitting in the living room in a pool of yellow lamplight, listening to the dog snoring and the house creaking) I started to hear my voice.
Since he died I’ve stuffed a lot of my creativity and curiosity about these deep things into some dark pocket in the back of my mind. Crammed them out of reach, underneath all the stuff of daily living. And my life is full. Since he died, I’ve bought a house, gotten married, had a baby, quit my job and moved to a new city. Each day feels full with small details: dishes, bread, newspaper, basil plants, cats, hugs, phone calls. Three years ago, in July after my father died I took long walks on the little beach by my tiny house and thought about how I wanted to put down roots and really settle into the present. Then, my notebooks were full of substance and pigment and ideal. I wrote poetry daily. Yet I felt somehow ripped away from myself: as though I were the skin of an apple peeled from it’s core.
So I bought a house with my then-boyfriend, now husband, and started planting tomatoes and sunflowers. Together my husband and I laid new floors and retiled the counter tops. We re-wired ever outlet, and took down a wall. And during that time I felt connected to a different aspect of my father—the side of him that was practical and grounded. I’ve spent countless hours of my life with him on projects. I learned how to use a chain saw and a table saw from him. I did my only stint with a jackhammer under his supervision, rewire outlets, plaster drywall, cut grass, kill rattlesnakes.
But sometime after our house was finished, I stopped feeling close to my father in that grounded way. And except for the occasional time when a pipe would burst in our basement, or an appliance would break, and I’d find myself talking to my dad in my head, asking for problem solving advice, my life has been so full of other things that I’ve been somewhat terrified and hesitant to go back to the story of his dying that I’ve been writing over and over again. It’s time now though, I know it in my bones. This move signifies a huge psychological shift for me: its all new terrain from here on out. And it’s up to me to learn to backstitch. To retrace the thread to where I left off and pick it up; to carry my memories of him into the present, so I can start finding my voice again. So I can start discovering what other stories I have to tell.
Thoughts & observations | Comments (2)Talking to High Monks in the Snow, Linda Minatoya
This is the memoir of Japanese-American woman exploring where she “fits” within her two cultures. It is subtly written, with distilled, accurate observations about people’s behaviors and cultural differences. The story deals with developing a sense of “home” and belonging, based on a definition of self, and how selfhood changes based on geographical location, culture, etc. The themes interest me personally, as I’ve been quite obsessed with how language shapes our sense of self, and in turn the role that culture plays in this process.