Conveyor Belt

So this morning I cried over diaper covers. Seriously, I did. We're canceling the diaper service (going to do the laundry ourselves and just save a few bucks) and today I had to get everything ready for the last pickup. We gathered stacks of clean diapers from all over the house and piled up the four diaper covers we've rented from the service - melon pink, candy pink, pale green (celery), and pale yellow (butter). And when your father stuffed them into a garbage bag with the extra clean diapers, all I could think about was how small they were and how I'd put them on you hundreds of times and how I'd patted your little pink/green/yellow bottom a million times. I cried and cried, even after you went upstairs to take your nap and he left for work. When they came to pick them up, I even had a fleeting urge to run outside, snatch one back and tell them to bill me for it.

I don't know why. You're getting bigger. That's what people, what living things, do - progress and grow and develop. And I'm excited about that, about all the yous that stretch out into the future: the chubby-cheeked little monkey that climbs into our bed in the mornings, the little girl with pigtails who asks questions every thirty seconds, the awkward middle-schooler taking the first steps toward becoming her own person, the teenager who charms and sulks and surprises, the young woman taking what we've taught her and what she's discovered to create someone new.

But with each step toward those people, we leave other versions of you behind forever and I'm sad to see them go. I love the you that you are now so very much that it's hard not to be sad to see that you slipping into the rear-view mirror. Sometimes I wish I could keep you small forever, sometimes I wish I could keep 60 different versions of you (but I suppose your room would get crowded!), and sometimes I get a little bit impatient for another version to arrive. (Not usually because I'm tired of dealing with whatever the current stage entails, but more because I'm excited for what the next stage brings....)

It's like standing in some sort of cosmic bucket brigade with random objects being handed to you on the right and you have to keep passing objects to the left and letting go. Sometimes what you're looking at is something you're not particularly crazy about or something painful to hold, like a rock or a plastic bottle cap or a thistle, and passing it on is easy, or it just goes by without much notice. But so often, it's something beautiful or sweet or precious, like a flower or a childhood memory or a photograph of someone you love so much. And you want to hold it just a minute longer, just stare at it a second more and memorize every detail, or slip it in your pocket, just because you can't bear to pass it on, to know you'll never see it again, or just because what you have is so wonderful, so tangible, that you find it hard to give it up in anticipation of what might be next. Who wants to trade an orchid for a hairpin? But, of course, you only have the hairpin for a minute too, and then it's a beautiful journal, a polished glass bead, an empty cigarette box, or a light bulb. All of those things have a purpose, a moment, and maybe that's what makes a moment special, when what the cosmos hands you is just what you need at that very moment. Some people seem to spend their lives out of sync, always wishing that what they had would have arrived five minutes earlier or five minutes later.... The trick is, as they say, wanting what you have, especially when what you have keeps changing.

Some day, when you're bigger, I'll teach you to hunt for shark teeth. I can wander a beach for hours, entering into a Zen-like trance when all that matters is what is right at my feet, what's right in front of me. And I'm always surprised when I finally look up to realize that I'm miles from where I started, because to me, when I'm hunting, I'm always looking for the next big one, thinking whenever I consider turning back, "But what if there's a Megalodon carcharodon tooth just ahead, just one shell pile further? What if the Big One is just ahead?" Maybe there are two kinds of people in life - those who say, "Let's call it a day" and head for home and those who keep wandering, looking up every so often to be amazed at how far they've come.

The Rest

I do think about things besides you. That's probably a surprise to you (and anyone else who might be reading this), but it's true. It's impossible to focus so relentlessly on just one thing, and I do have other thoughts that shift in and out of my mind. The problem is that, to me, everything other than you is hopelessly banal for the most part, and to other people, everything you is hopelessly banal for the most part. Therein, as Dharma says, squats the toad. So I spend a lot of time keeping my own counsel.

And reading. I thumb my nose at everyone who told me that I wouldn't read again after you were born. I read less, certainly, mostly just because I'm bone-tired when I hit bed at night and can barely keep my eyes open. (And because indulging in bouts of insomnia that allow me to read until 4 a.m. are dangerous.) I've read 20+ books since you were born, and I'm not quite back to my average of 4-5 books a month, but I'm getting there. Since September, I've read, among other things:

Packing for Mars
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime
Silent on the Moor
At Home: A Short History of Private Life
The Lace Reader
Motherless Mothers
Room
Freckles and The Girl of the Limberlost (favorites of your grandma's)
Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society
The Sex Lives of Cannibals: Adrift in the Equatorial Pacific
Thinking in Pictures: My Life with Autism
The Secret Life of Marilyn Monroe
Matterhorn
Fingersmith

And, of course, I work. In the months since you've arrived, your father (and I) curated an exhibition at the Decorative Arts Center of Ohio and wrote an exhibition catalogue on Ohio decorative arts. And organized a Midwestern decorative arts conference. And lectured several places, including the Hudson, Ohio public library and the Oglebay Antiques Show. I've written newsletter articles about everything from Waterford crystal to William Henry Harrison, Christmas ornaments to the Chinese Cultural Revolution.

I've taken care of Elvis, our very sick cat; lost 40 pounds; started making homemade vegetable stock; planted nine tomato plants, three peonies, and some rhubarb; knitted socks and dishcloths; shopped for Christmas and birthdays; signed us up for a CSA membership and discovered the joys of garlic scapes; and helped your father assemble an Oldenburg wardrobe. This is how you're going to be a year old soon and I find myself wondering where the time went....