Friday, September 14, 2018

tell everybody

The thing about it, when Zeke was born, is that I didn't want to leave the room with him ever.  And I also I wanted to tell everybody.

And I think that's part of what took me to facebook and texting and whatnot, in the early days, but I am interested in the deep part of that inclination: what about the energy of having a newborn makes me want to tell everybody?

Maybe it's just that he's so great.  People say he's cute, and they're right, and I sit around thinking about how cute he is some of the time, but more often I think about how having him sleep on my belly is like lying with the heart of a star, about how looking at him is like staring into the most hopeful of futures, about how loving him is making me grow and change in a startlingly relentless and gentle way.  It's great, yeah, and he's cute, yeah, but there's more going on there, at least for me.

And so I like to wear him around, to strap him onto my heart chakra while he naps or stares into space, and walk on the lovely trails and shitty strip malls around my apartment.  And we run into people, and some of them ignore us, which is fine, but a lot of folks want to see him, want to say hello. Because if someone is wearing the heart of a star on their chest, well, that seems at least notable.  And maybe remarkable.  And maybe marvelous and inviting and wonderful in the literal sense.

People of a bunch of different cultures and languages have gotten to marvel at him in this way.  And I love to post the dorky pictures on facebook and have people all over join me in the practice of delighting in Zeke. 

But it's just there's something there for me in this practice.  Maybe I understand evangelism for the first time, or at least new and clear.  Cause I want everyone to try playing dungeons and dragons, and I want everybody to have a meaningful spiritual community, but not quite in the same way that I want people to get a good look or a visit from Zeke.

I have to wonder if there isn't something evolutionary about it- so many cultures have the "here is the baby let us visit the kin" practice.  And I can imagine the ice age nomadic bands having that: here is this kid who is new, but let's take them around so that they can belong to the whole band of us, cause lord knows one or two parents alone are not gonna be sufficient for this task.

So probably there's something old and visceral in me that is wired to show this kid off, to make sure that as many people as possible see him when he is obviously beautiful, when he is cute and lovable in this most simple and stupid way, so that he will have those people to draw on if we get attacked by a mammoth.  Or what have you.

And.

And I think that as I grow as a person, I'm moving towards more honesty and more vulnerability in general.  And every time I post a dorky picture, there is a way in which I am saying: here is a person who has utterly claimed my heart, who has made my heart grow six more sizes and I feel like it was pretty big already so how am I even to live in this world, this person who is so perfect and all he does is sleep and eat and poop and that is completely sufficient to make him my favorite person in the history of ever.  And if that's true, that must mean something fierce and stupid and big about the lovability of all of us. 

So, yeah, I am still wanting to tell everybody.  And when people at the checkout counter or on the trail or wherever just look at him and grin in passing, I want to say, "that's right."  But it's not just him, friends.  It's all of us.

2 comments:

Isabel Call said...

thank you for this. not being a parent, I feel included. it's not just you, friend, it's all of us, who get to love him.

David Weasley said...

Exactly! <3