Babies are very, very special entities.I haven't had one in a long, long time, but I remember vividly the deliveries of my two children as I'm sure all women remember theirs. After all, it's a pretty cool thing to bring life out of your own body. Humbling and thrilling and scary and painfully wonderful all at once. Yes, pretty cool. But now, in my advanced non-childbearing age, I appreciate babies on another level.
When I look at a baby, I see "intimations of immortality." I see a being that doesn't communicate with words, but simply with its presence. I see eyes that really look. I don't know what babies see, but they surely see something and maybe that something is not just its physical surroundings. Somehow, I think a very young baby sees and knows much more than we think. Just because they can't verbalize, doesn't mean they don't know what is happening on some level. Perhaps they know more than we do.
I don't know why I feel this way, but looking at babies makes me think that anything is possible. For them, for me, for the world. My jaded sensibilities are suspended for a few moments and I see pure love looking back at me. Not necessarily from only babies that I know, but any baby passing by in it's father's arms or ensconced in a stroller. It doesn't matter.
Maybe I'm a silly old lady. Maybe I just want every child's life to be filled with love and I'm projecting that onto these wee ones. It doesn't matter, I love looking at babies and hoping they stay as wonderful as they are at that moment for the rest of their lives.
Here is Linda Pasten's poem about birth.
Notes from the Delivery Room
by Linda Pastan
Strapped down,
victim in an old comic book,
I have been here before,
this place where pain winces
off the walls
like too bright light.
Bear down a doctor says,
foreman to sweating laborer,
but this work, this forcing
of one life from another
is something that I signed for
at a moment when I would have signed anything.
Babies should grow in fields;
common as beets or turnips
they should be picked and held
root end up, soil spilling
from between their toes—
and how much easier it would be later,
returning them to earth.
Bear up ... bear down ... the audience
grows restive, and I'm a new magician
who can't produce the rabbit
from my swollen hat.
She's crowning, someone says,
but there is no one royal here,
just me, quite barefoot,
greeting my barefoot child.
"Notes from the Delivery Room" by Linda Pastan, from Carnival Evening: New and Selected Poems 1968-1998. © W. W. Norton & Company, 1999. Reprinted with permission. (buy now)
Sunday, December 5, 2010
Oh, Christmas Tree
Ah yes, 'tis the season, fa la la, ringing bells and all that. And it even snowed today to make it seem more like Christmas. So why an I not in the mood? No mystery there - it's time to get a Christmas tree. For the 17th year, the pressure is on once again. You see, by a fluke or perhaps a warp in the time-space continuum, the first year in our new home I found a tree that was very tall, very pretty - distinctive even, and very cheap. That set the bar for all subsequent Christmas trees: they had to be tall, pretty or distinctive (and boy have we had some distinctive trees), and cheap.
A tall tree is somewhat hard to find, but with a modicum of diligence, one can be found without driving 60 miles round trip. If it is tall, it cannot be skinny. We usually err on the side of fat because many times we have traipsed out to a farm waaaaaay out in the country even farther than we live. The farm tree we pick is about a mile from the little tree house where they wrap it for you and we have to drag it there. Snow helps. Mud does not.It is usually an older tree that hasn't been trimmed since it was one year old and looks like it needs to go on a diet. But it's tall - the primary requirement - and it isn't too expensive, the second prerequisite. We have had some trees with great personality, if you know what I mean. That's right, no one else wants to date this tree because it is too tall and too weird, but it does provide great conversation stimulus as we wrap a rope around it and ourselves and drag it up to the little house, providing no little entertainment for the people hoisting normal trees on shoulders and marching briskly to their cars.
Getting such a tree through the wrapper-machine is usually sketchy. The guy at the big end gets big eyes and the man at the small end of the tube has "Oh no" written all over his face. Smart wrapper-guys don't even try to push this tree through the wrapper. Those who like a challenge grin, grab the tree and stuff it in causing me to worry about breaking the spirit of our charming new friend. Usually, the tree comes out wrapped and ready for the car. Of course, because of requirement number one (remember, it has to be tall - 10 feet at least), the tree sticks out the back of the Element and we have to ride with the hatch up. It is a long, cold ride. Where is the hot chocolate? If we are feeling particularly skinny, we indulge when we get home. But I digress.
So far, we have been able to find tall, charming, not-too-expensive trees, but every year I dread the pressure. It is getting harder to find tall trees at anything like a reasonable price. I refuse to pay a lot of money for a dead tree. And even though I love the odor of a fresh tree, I am moving closer to the artificial camp every year. I don't want to trek out to the hinterlands to find our tree anymore. I just want to buy the thing and get it home quickly. And there's the rub. If I find a tree close to the house in a tree lot, and if it isn't painted that ridiculous blue-green color, and if it is tall and lovely, or tall and with personality, it is way too expensive. Like you wouldn't believe how expensive. Over $100 expensive. Out of the question.
So here it is, December 5th and tree-time is here. The lot guy I spoke to yesterday said after this weekend, most of the trees would be gone. He had 10 foot trees for only $100. I was not amused. My Sweetie has a bad cold so this weekend's hunt for the perfect tree has been postponed. Next weekend I will be gone visiting my newest grandson (and his parents too), far away so no tree search then. That leaves us just one weekend before Christmas to find our tree, have our family decorating party, and be ready for the big holiday. If all the good trees will disappear this weekend, imagine what will be left the week before Christmas.
This situation reminds me of what my father did when we were little. He would wait until Christmas Eve to buy our tree because he didn't like paying for a dead tree either. You can guess what he brought home most of the time. My mother would sigh and get out the decorations as he tried to make a crooked tree with multiple gaps in the branches stand up and look good.
I live in fear that this will happen to us and we will lose our position as the possessors of tall trees with true character. These trees usually come with great stories of the searching for hours, the chopping down, the aforementioned dragging, the wrapping and the freezing ride home. I know that some Christmas soon we are going to end up with a Charlie Brown tree. And worse yet, we will have paid a lot of money for it. Truly, that is the beginning of the slippery slope - an artificial tree cannot be far behind. Well fa la la la la and Merry Christmas to all. If our usual search is fruitless, I do know where the perfect tree can be located - at KMart with twinkling lights already installed.
Robert Frost has a different perspective on this tree issue.
Christmas Trees by Robert Frost
A Christmas Circular Letter
The city had withdrawn into itself
And left at last the country to the country;
When between whirls of snow not come to lie
And whirls of foliage not yet laid, there drove
A stranger to our yard, who looked the city,
Yet did in country fashion in that there
He sat and waited till he drew us out
A-buttoning coats to ask him who he was.
He proved to be the city come again
To look for something it had left behind
And could not do without and keep its Christmas.
He asked if I would sell my Christmas trees;
My woods—the young fir balsams like a place
Where houses all are churches and have spires.
I hadn’t thought of them as Christmas Trees.
I doubt if I was tempted for a moment
To sell them off their feet to go in cars
And leave the slope behind the house all bare,
Where the sun shines now no warmer than the moon.
I’d hate to have them know it if I was.
Yet more I’d hate to hold my trees except
As others hold theirs or refuse for them,
Beyond the time of profitable growth,
The trial by market everything must come to.
I dallied so much with the thought of selling.
Then whether from mistaken courtesy
And fear of seeming short of speech, or whether
From hope of hearing good of what was mine,
I said, "There aren’t enough to be worth while."
"I could soon tell how many they would cut,
You let me look them over."
"You could look.
But don’t expect I’m going to let you have them."
Pasture they spring in, some in clumps too close
That lop each other of boughs, but not a few
Quite solitary and having equal boughs
All round and round. The latter he nodded "Yes" to,
Or paused to say beneath some lovelier one,
With a buyer’s moderation, "That would do."
I thought so too, but wasn’t there to say so.
We climbed the pasture on the south, crossed over,
And came down on the north.
He said, "A thousand."
"A thousand Christmas trees!—at what apiece?"
He felt some need of softening that to me:
"A thousand trees would come to thirty dollars."
Then I was certain I had never meant
To let him have them. Never show surprise!
But thirty dollars seemed so small beside
The extent of pasture I should strip, three cents
(For that was all they figured out apiece),
Three cents so small beside the dollar friends
I should be writing to within the hour
Would pay in cities for good trees like those,
Regular vestry-trees whole Sunday Schools
Could hang enough on to pick off enough.
A thousand Christmas trees I didn’t know I had!
Worth three cents more to give away than sell,
As may be shown by a simple calculation.
Too bad I couldn’t lay one in a letter.
I can’t help wishing I could send you one,
In wishing you herewith a Merry Christmas.
A tall tree is somewhat hard to find, but with a modicum of diligence, one can be found without driving 60 miles round trip. If it is tall, it cannot be skinny. We usually err on the side of fat because many times we have traipsed out to a farm waaaaaay out in the country even farther than we live. The farm tree we pick is about a mile from the little tree house where they wrap it for you and we have to drag it there. Snow helps. Mud does not.It is usually an older tree that hasn't been trimmed since it was one year old and looks like it needs to go on a diet. But it's tall - the primary requirement - and it isn't too expensive, the second prerequisite. We have had some trees with great personality, if you know what I mean. That's right, no one else wants to date this tree because it is too tall and too weird, but it does provide great conversation stimulus as we wrap a rope around it and ourselves and drag it up to the little house, providing no little entertainment for the people hoisting normal trees on shoulders and marching briskly to their cars.
Getting such a tree through the wrapper-machine is usually sketchy. The guy at the big end gets big eyes and the man at the small end of the tube has "Oh no" written all over his face. Smart wrapper-guys don't even try to push this tree through the wrapper. Those who like a challenge grin, grab the tree and stuff it in causing me to worry about breaking the spirit of our charming new friend. Usually, the tree comes out wrapped and ready for the car. Of course, because of requirement number one (remember, it has to be tall - 10 feet at least), the tree sticks out the back of the Element and we have to ride with the hatch up. It is a long, cold ride. Where is the hot chocolate? If we are feeling particularly skinny, we indulge when we get home. But I digress.
So far, we have been able to find tall, charming, not-too-expensive trees, but every year I dread the pressure. It is getting harder to find tall trees at anything like a reasonable price. I refuse to pay a lot of money for a dead tree. And even though I love the odor of a fresh tree, I am moving closer to the artificial camp every year. I don't want to trek out to the hinterlands to find our tree anymore. I just want to buy the thing and get it home quickly. And there's the rub. If I find a tree close to the house in a tree lot, and if it isn't painted that ridiculous blue-green color, and if it is tall and lovely, or tall and with personality, it is way too expensive. Like you wouldn't believe how expensive. Over $100 expensive. Out of the question.
So here it is, December 5th and tree-time is here. The lot guy I spoke to yesterday said after this weekend, most of the trees would be gone. He had 10 foot trees for only $100. I was not amused. My Sweetie has a bad cold so this weekend's hunt for the perfect tree has been postponed. Next weekend I will be gone visiting my newest grandson (and his parents too), far away so no tree search then. That leaves us just one weekend before Christmas to find our tree, have our family decorating party, and be ready for the big holiday. If all the good trees will disappear this weekend, imagine what will be left the week before Christmas.
This situation reminds me of what my father did when we were little. He would wait until Christmas Eve to buy our tree because he didn't like paying for a dead tree either. You can guess what he brought home most of the time. My mother would sigh and get out the decorations as he tried to make a crooked tree with multiple gaps in the branches stand up and look good.
I live in fear that this will happen to us and we will lose our position as the possessors of tall trees with true character. These trees usually come with great stories of the searching for hours, the chopping down, the aforementioned dragging, the wrapping and the freezing ride home. I know that some Christmas soon we are going to end up with a Charlie Brown tree. And worse yet, we will have paid a lot of money for it. Truly, that is the beginning of the slippery slope - an artificial tree cannot be far behind. Well fa la la la la and Merry Christmas to all. If our usual search is fruitless, I do know where the perfect tree can be located - at KMart with twinkling lights already installed.
Robert Frost has a different perspective on this tree issue.
Christmas Trees by Robert Frost
A Christmas Circular Letter
The city had withdrawn into itself
And left at last the country to the country;
When between whirls of snow not come to lie
And whirls of foliage not yet laid, there drove
A stranger to our yard, who looked the city,
Yet did in country fashion in that there
He sat and waited till he drew us out
A-buttoning coats to ask him who he was.
He proved to be the city come again
To look for something it had left behind
And could not do without and keep its Christmas.
He asked if I would sell my Christmas trees;
My woods—the young fir balsams like a place
Where houses all are churches and have spires.
I hadn’t thought of them as Christmas Trees.
I doubt if I was tempted for a moment
To sell them off their feet to go in cars
And leave the slope behind the house all bare,
Where the sun shines now no warmer than the moon.
I’d hate to have them know it if I was.
Yet more I’d hate to hold my trees except
As others hold theirs or refuse for them,
Beyond the time of profitable growth,
The trial by market everything must come to.
I dallied so much with the thought of selling.
Then whether from mistaken courtesy
And fear of seeming short of speech, or whether
From hope of hearing good of what was mine,
I said, "There aren’t enough to be worth while."
"I could soon tell how many they would cut,
You let me look them over."
"You could look.
But don’t expect I’m going to let you have them."
Pasture they spring in, some in clumps too close
That lop each other of boughs, but not a few
Quite solitary and having equal boughs
All round and round. The latter he nodded "Yes" to,
Or paused to say beneath some lovelier one,
With a buyer’s moderation, "That would do."
I thought so too, but wasn’t there to say so.
We climbed the pasture on the south, crossed over,
And came down on the north.
He said, "A thousand."
"A thousand Christmas trees!—at what apiece?"
He felt some need of softening that to me:
"A thousand trees would come to thirty dollars."
Then I was certain I had never meant
To let him have them. Never show surprise!
But thirty dollars seemed so small beside
The extent of pasture I should strip, three cents
(For that was all they figured out apiece),
Three cents so small beside the dollar friends
I should be writing to within the hour
Would pay in cities for good trees like those,
Regular vestry-trees whole Sunday Schools
Could hang enough on to pick off enough.
A thousand Christmas trees I didn’t know I had!
Worth three cents more to give away than sell,
As may be shown by a simple calculation.
Too bad I couldn’t lay one in a letter.
I can’t help wishing I could send you one,
In wishing you herewith a Merry Christmas.
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