Friday, February 20, 2009

I'm so glad it's changed


Parents often talk about how having a child changes them…the house is taken over by brightly- colored-bouncy seats, finding sweet potato on you sleeve (just happened), lack of sleep, becoming immune to smells of poop.

Last Saturday I was at our local grocery store sans make-up and in clothes that welcome baby food-spitting fights. Trips out are not as “successful” as they used to be. I am focused on enjoying my baby. This means a combination of swinging my head around (he likes my hair tickling his face), nibbling on his socked feet, singing, and dancing. I miss a few things on the list because we are belly laughing aisle after aisle.

We get to the frozen section and my husband remembers some of what we have forgotten and dashes off. He returns to my performance of Huey Lewis’, “Do you believe in love” to our son.

What struck me funny was that no surrounding shoppers had a reaction. They kept their heads down like nothing was happening. No call for help, tossing of produce, booing, giggles, humming, hip shakes, disapproving nods, 911calls. I would have a reaction to an adult woman knowing all the words to a Huey Lewis song, let alone someone believing she is in a karaoke bar instead of the ice cream section of her grocery store.

During the brief instrumental, I wonder for a minute if this isn’t how our neighbors parent, and then go on, “I used to have you in a photograph, I’m so glad it’s changed.”

Wednesday, February 18, 2009

Suck Away


Being a parent has opened my world to a dizzying amount of input. One seemingly major issue is the pacifier. I first noticed it with a co-worker’s baby, someone asking “You aren’t going to use a pacifier are you?” I thought they had to be joking. Like they were saying, “You aren’t going to use a rusted-out-dagger to get that booger, are you?”

Our baby didn’t take to daggers, or pacifiers. So he is sucking his thumb. Parents gasp and look at me, tattling and pointing “He is sucking his thumb!” As if he just stole their ID or motorcycle. “Yeah, I know. Next week are going to start him on unfiltered Camels.”

Being a former thumb sucker, I don’t get the big deal. Are you supposed to be a non-sucker, or a finger-sucker, a penny-sucker? It isn’t illegal or costly. He enjoys it and no harm is being done to the environment or the stock market.

I remember my parents trying to wean me off the thumb and the blanket with extreme rigidity. I just wonder what harm I was causing. Did I look weak? Was it an embarrassment? Did they worry I would fall the wrong crowd? If that is the worst habit for stress management that you end up with, then I say suck away.

Friday, February 13, 2009

Practicality of Religion


My grandmother died just shy of ninety-one. She was cremated the same as we did for my grandfather several years earlier. We had no funeral or memorial service for her. No gathering of family or loved ones in her honor. No traditional or untraditional function which could have served as a valid reason to take off work, to cry, to space out, to linger over old pictures and mementos, to receive hugs, and casseroles.

My family is out of town. Our traditions are sort of out of this universe. So I was left in the middle of my life to grieve the loss of someone who meant a lot to me. Of whom the memories are rich with texture and life. The recollections came quickly to my mind provoking warm salty tears running down my cheeks like a broken faucet. I considered wandering a random cemetery or hospital hoping not to look so odd.

I found that without an organized religion or tradition I simply didn’t have a place to be at this very vulnerable and lonely time. I realized weather or not I am comfortable with each and every aspect of a particular religion and its traditions, they serve a purpose. They give you something to do and someplace to be during a difficult time.

It is easy to disagree with the tiny details of a religion when you are not in a place of need. Comfort isn’t really in the tiny details, but the overall feeling of safety and togetherness.

Wednesday, February 11, 2009

Un Dia Nuevo


I rode in your convertible with the top down at night. Music so loud I didn’t know music could get that loud in the open air. Music made up of female scratchy voices. Guitars being played so awkwardly it was painfully beautiful in a shy-don’t-notice-me kind of way I remembered from high school.

You spoke fast. You drove fast. Your tiny delicate parchment-paper-pale fingers danced along the leather steering wheel animating your words about planting flowers at a park, going dancing, moving with a group of 28 to Austin and did I want to join in? You were inviting me on our first nighttime car ride into such intimate permanent activities. I am just a curious passenger, wanting to fill in the holes of my imaginary crayola sketch of you, not expecting such a welcome, such energy like 18 packets of pop rocks in a puppy’s surprised mouth.

I watch your movement so natural with feminine fleshy parts easing out of your too-tight shirt and getting pushed out of equally small jeans. Bright fuchsia nail polish light your finger tips and toe nails like perfect stage lighting for your nightly performances.