Sunny Daze: Mary Oliver Reminds Me

A lot of my day is spent looking at my daughter, being naptrapped (a phrase Emily introduced me to and which is now my state of being for approximately 60% of the day) and listening to her breathe.

In the morning, I put her on my chest and I feel the heat of her. Occasionally some impulse to leave or do something rises—to go be productive or what not.

This morning when that rose, I thought of the poet queen Mary Oliver and her beautiful tribute to presence and life, in her poem The Summer Day.

As the urge to go take a shower, or bake some bread, or set up a charging station, pecked at my brain, I looked down at Sunny’s face and thought “Really? I think there’s something better to do than this?”

In Oliver’s poem, after she tells us about the grasshopper she’s watching, she says it thus:

I don't know exactly what a prayer is.

I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down

into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,

how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,

which is what I have been doing all day.

Tell me, what else should I have done?

Doesn't everything (fade)* at last, and too soon?

Tell me, what is it you plan to do

with your one wild and precious life?

—

As for me and Sunny, there’s no place else to be. We’re in a bubble with one another, getting to know each other, looking into each other’s eyes, sticking our tongues out at one another. There’s nowhere else in the world I’d rather be than listening to her raspy tiny breath. 

*Ive edited the poem here. 

https://www.loc.gov/programs/poetry-and-literature/poet-laureate/poet-laureate-projects/poetry-180/all-poems/item/poetry-180-133/the-summer-day/

Sunny Daze: The Big Bad World

When Sunny was in my belly for a whopping 42 wks, I could make all the decisions for us. I drank decaf coffee, forewent the turkey subs, swore off sushi, stopped surfing for a few months and got the flu shot / booster / Tdap shot. I was able to control what was going into us for the most part, able to keep her safe in the little swimming pool from which she kicked and punched me most often at night when a black bean burger w fries was cramping her living quarters. 

Now, she’s two wks old, and she’s IN THE WORLD. 

The idea is frightening at fuck to me and as I bounced her around our house yesterday, I realized just how helpless I am to keep her safe. 

We are doing the basic things: keeping her appointments and vaccinations, breastfeeding, allowing her to sleep, getting her outside but it all feels like so very little when there are nuclear arsenals, anthrax and the common cold looming around every corner.

I guess we just can’t think about it too much, can’t let our minds drift there. 

But I look at her little eyes blinking up at me and hear her little coos as she’s suckling or sleeping and I realize how much power she has to break my heart. 

I’d never seen her outside of ultrasounds a mere three weeks ago and now I would do anything for her, feel a love that is terrifyingly potent for her, feel my throat and chest constrict when my mind bends and thinks of losing her.

Researcher Brene Brown discusses this in her book The Gifts of Imperfection. 

https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/1141160-fear-of-the-dark-i-ve-always-been-prone-to-worry

I don’t know the solution other than to devote myself to loving her, to savor every moment, dwell in gratitude for her and the time I have w her, and to bravely go forward.  

Sunny Daze: Dispatches from my Time w the Babe

from Friday 3/11:

These were the things on my to do list today w sunny:

Listne to a Record / Music

Read her a Book

Physical time (Massage): https://www.whattoexpect.com/first-year/benefits-of-infant-massage.aspx

I had grand plans that instead were usurped by an all day booby buffet, a million poops and haggardly trying to stuff a bit of lasagna and salad in my mouth.

I thought I would have no time having a newborn. It’s not quite that though — I do have time. I just don’t have time when I want it. Sunny fell asleep on me for two hours—that’s two hours of “free time,” except my computer was downstairs out of reach. But the thing is — that’s ok. It’s better than ok really.

I’ve been thinking a lot about attention after spending time reading Cal Newport’s various works as well as being in the middle of Jenny Odells How to Do Nothing and my big take away is this: How we spend our attention is how we spend our life.

And right now, I want my attention wholly focused on Sunny.

I never had the inclination to have children — it seemed fairly boring and it seemed to take you out of the running of the fun adventurous things in life, at least temporarily, while you were cooking the baby in your belly and after they were born a bit too. The idea of just hanging around, taking a baby for walks, singing to the baby, tummy time, etc etc — boring, boring, boring. The idea slowly began to appeal to me as I got older—it couldn’t be that EVERYONE was wrong or lying about the joys of having children—but even when Nick and I decided to sign up for the grand adventure of having kids with confidence that we would love them and raise them right, I still wondered how I would feel in the thick of it.

Then she arrived and arrested my attention with her beautiful curious eyes, her mouth like an amoeba changing shape all the time w her reactions, her ire when she’s hungry and her peace when she’s restful. And I suddenly understood.

I’m home for three months with her — already two weeks are gone — and all I want is to know that I was truly present with her. In fact, I want that to be the case for our whole lives together— that she has my attention, that I’m here. That given the choice between nursing her and giggling at her ridiculous goat cries or missing them because I’m texting, I can assure myself that I did the former.

There are currencies of value outside of money that are challenged every day: our attention, our focus, our energy, our time. To claim ownership of our attention and proactively manage where we aim it is practically THE act of resistance in our age. 

No, we can’t all just sit and watch Sunny all day long. There are showers to take, insurance companies to haggle with, crunches to do (…in a few months) but the pockets of time that are mine to give to her, I want to know I gave her the deepest attention I could. That I didn’t miss anything. 

These three months I have at home with her I just want to focus on being g present. Whether things are going well, whether she’s screaming like a banshee, I want to be here.