inquiry into celebration of Firsts, part 2

It comes back to me: being in the poster and t-shirt store on 8th street. 1984. That poster everywhere of the baby with the spaghetti bowl on its head. Remember that? It was everywhere when I was a teenager--why? Why? I hated that poster. But then I have trouble with the awkward, the imperfect, the struggle. . . That ballet training, the yearning toward perfection and fear of failure overriding natural curiosity. The First? So. Then. I think maybe there is something to celebrating firsts. A need to celebrate the awkward, the misshapen, the mistake. Something in that, in the don’t watch me do this thing I don’t know how to do . . . Like all things about babies, they are both Present and Future. Everything they do contains a nugget of the future, all the other times this task or motion will be done without thought, just a part of life, part of the routine of life.
So, yes, one day she will eat. By herself.
Snap. Click. . . .
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thegayrecluse said…
I think celebrations often feel hollow because they fail to acknowledge a certain grief that can arrive with the end of almost anything, which no matter how horrible it seemed at the time is at least now in the past, and so can seem relatively safe in comparison to the more looming specter of the future.
January 15, 2008 at 12:06 AM
Muttering said…
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January 16, 2008 at 3:02 PM
Muttering said…
What you say is paradoxical, and therefore, true and most likely profound even. And, certainly, behind--not even behind, but in--our smiles for the camera (think of those photographs where the sullen faced, pinched-mouth people carry their burden for all to see), there is detectable--really, let's look now--some grief and also relief at this moment made safe for Memory. . . ah! Hence, our addition to Nostalgia, the safest of emotions. . .
January 16, 2008 at 3:10 PM
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