It s September 2020. Roland is almost twenty months old. I've decided that there is nothing more romantic than raising a child. There is also no human activity more ghostly. Every day he is someone new, the shell of his old self shed somewhere between dreamland and his bedroom in the morning.
He recently entered a stage of avoiding naps by working himself into a tearful fervor. Our attempts at de-escalation are futile. He just wants to watch “Pooh.” This stage is passing, it seems, and he has journeyed courageously into a new land of speaking, and requires constant translation. A whole vocabulary has opened up to him. Unfortunately, we don’t know what he is saying most of the time. But of course, that doesn’t stop us from responding.
His Mr. Bubble lawnmower is out in the yard in the dark as the embers in the fire idly burn out. He is sleeping now, so I take the time to try and trap some of these emotions onto a page on which I can look back. He is starting to learn that he is his own person, separate from us, and with that comes a tidal wave of feeling both blissful and horrifying over us all. Who knows what he is going through? It is a wonder to think of the awe he is experiencing as he comes into consciousness. Every day he makes new sounds, new motions. He copies our body language as we sing “The Itsy-Bitsy Spider”, he points to the fan and swings his finger “around and around and around” and then he’ll point at the smoke detector and smile brightly when I say “Beep!”
This is nothing short of a miracle. He is adorable, and we love him so much that it hurts. We know how lucky we are. We face every day without deniability the feeling of being blessed by this power that is so much greater than us. It is inside this energy that our problems can be solved, our worries eased, the tormentors of our minds bathed in the clean water of this love. We are experiencing happiness here that is unfathomable in any other state, at any other time in life. This day, this minute, is unique. I want somehow to suspend it, this feeling, how his face looks when he makes eye contact with me, how her body feels pressed against mine as we watch him run from one end of the house to the other, remembering when he couldn’t lift his head.
I’ve a note here from September 4th. It says: I’m “Daddy” now. He had just called me Daddy. It wasn’t the first time, but the light in his eyes, the understanding with which he said it was what turned my heart over. I’m sure he’ll still call me Dada, for awhile. He doesn’t really ever do his scoot anymore.
He runs around, kind of waddles, but he’s quick and strong for his size. He surprises us nonstop. The moments are so precious when she and I look at each other and laugh because he is babbling something, or doing something like laying on the ground, lying back on the couch, “relaxin’,” or any of the other things he does that I want to run and write down, but don’t, because I know that it is in the moment I need to remain if I am going to be able to recall it with the truest vision. Don’t look away.
I don’t know what could be stronger than love. This vehement fluttering is all consuming. I would die for my family, overcome with veritable magic. He is our link and our ligament. Together we are whole.
I make sure to take the time to keep myself satisfied creatively. I have to purge this overflowing sensation as every day more of this future nostalgia continues to flood through me. I scribble notes down, and I try to arrange life into a fathomable routine. As many hours as I feel I could spend sitting at my typewriter, the time I spend with my family is more valuable than any time I’ve ever had. The future remains a mystery doused in optimism. In this moment we feel furiously lucky to have all that we do. It drives us forward rather than puts us at ease, to be safe and witnessing this magical process without so many of the crippling burdens by which many families around the world are afflicted. I suddenly have never been more adamant on fighting for the good of the planet and its inhabitants, not only to make the world a better place for our children, and their children, but to set an example that is good enough to follow.
