It’s almost midnight. I need to have a shower and go to bed. I’m tired, but too distracted to focus on anything — let alone something as concrete and mundane as hygiene or sleep.
Six months! How can my little Roy be six months old already? It makes no sense… Just the other night he was a tiny handful, blinking at me as he sat bundled into his swing. I remember so clearly this winter, how terrified i was when i felt his little fingers and they were cool to the touch — how i dashed to find his little mittens. My little baby.
Little. He still is. But he’s also a giant.
I remember reading him my old book about Finn McCool and Cúchulainn and the giants’ causeway — which is really a hilarious story about Finn's wife saving Finn from a beating (by convincing Cúchulainn that Finn himself is actually just their infant son). No wonder stories of giants have persisted for countless centuries: we are all born into a world of giants, but that world fades gradually into memory and then myth. Until we become parents and the illusion is restored but also reversed. When i hold Roy up in the air and look at him smiling down at me i somehow tap into that awareness of having once been so small. And i also become aware of his experience of time — or rather his experience of futurity. Damn it: children really are the future.
~~~
I had the honor of being asked to play guitar at a friend’s memorial service this month. His sudden passing was an enormous emotional shock, and even more so because he had suddenly been in my thoughts only a day before. Having been confronted so bluntly by mortality, in the same breath as my son’s first half-birthday, i’ve never felt so awake — or so grateful — in all my life.
I’ve started my Master’s thesis project — an “immanent critique” of contemporary anarchist activism. I’m actually worried that it may alienate some of my dearest friends; but i feel compelled to let my doubts to run their course. How else can i believe my own convictions?
So, as i feel closer now, closer to my partner and our child than i have ever felt to anyone, i’m also feeling somewhat alone… Re-reading Ursula Le Guin’s The Dispossessed, thinking of Shevek, an ambiguously epic subtext seems to emerge from every quiet (or loud) moment.
Reading, and listening to the birds, at UBC. Changing Roy’s diapers at night (he’s teething! He has two sharp, little teeth! And, i have learned, teething means more frequent diaper-changes). Making dinner. Staying up with Sara, watching old tv shows we’ve downloaded, after Roy’s gone to bed. Staying up alone, after Sara’s gone to bed, to write this. Waking up before both of them, sneaking into the living room to do some early stretches with the Wii Fit. Reading Ulysses to Roy before his morning nap. Riding my bike home from campus. Washing dishes. Staring at pictures from Roy’s first six months.
This is one hell of a life i’m living. Happy half-birthday little guy. I love you so much…
