How do I baby?

Assignment: In this assignment, things that were considered universally good by society were listed on the board, and the class was divided in half. One half were contrarions, those that would tear down these culturally-accepted goods. The other half were champions, singing their praises and worth. I was put into the champion group, assigned to the topic of 'Liking Babies', and then did a cubing with Steph to determine all the questions we would ask and work with in our writing on babies. We came up with many, chose a few favorites, and then separated for the following free-write:

What are babies? Babies are everything and nothing, a well of infinite potential. Babies represent all that we can be, all of our promise, they are humanity without stain. To love babies is to love all that we represent as a race, as a people, as points of light in the dark universe.

When do people have babies? People have babies when they are ready to add another life to their own, when they are ready to be responsible for the growth of a new life. People never take on such a responsibility without thought, reason, or some such thing. People want babies to be happy and healthy, and so do their best to ensure that they can provide for a baby to be just that, happy and healthy.

"How do I baby?" I suppose that's really the heart of the matter, isn't it? How do I baby. We all like babies, we all care for them, but how do you care for them, how do you raise them, how do you have them? Where do babies come from? The age-old question, the time-honored lie. Babies come only from the union of two people, babies come from the biological imperative of a species, babies come from a rush of feelings, feelings strong and vibrant, feelings passionate and bright. And if they're very, very lucky, babies come from love.

But, wait, that doesn't answer my question. How do I baby? How do I create something that is a little me and a little you, that is a living, breathing proof that somehow we were connected? Well, do you have to create it? Does it have to come from you? Societal folly! A baby need not be the combined seed of yours and another's genetic material. There are babies all around, ripe for the taking! In need of a home! In need of your care! Your baby is yours because you love it, not because it looks like you or acts like you. Therefore, adopting a baby is a valid, even cherished alternative, showing that love for children goes beyond mere genetic instinct! (Though, let us not examine too closely why such infants require adoption in the first place. I'm sure that there was a good reason for each and every one of them.)

Right! So now you have your baby. Still, you ask, "How do I baby?". Why, with love and kindness, of course! Babies are people too, just little people that aren't done stewing yet. You decide what goes in the pot, and you decide how to mix it! Having such a life in your hands is surely one of the best feelings a human can experience! We were all made to be parents some day, each and every one of us, taught by our own beloved parents before us, and so on! Equipped with the history of all of man-kind, you will surely make an excellent parent as well!

And now all this straw is starting to get to me, bursting through the ill-knit seems of my sewed-together suit. If I exist now to provide the campaign for optimism and idealism, why is it then that I must write endlessly, without pause? A free-write to argue in favor of beauty, goodness, and truth? How difficult! Yet, why is it so difficult? Ah, now there's an interesting question. Is that the lesson to be learned from this exercise? That to write inspirationally, optimistically, positively, idealistically, etc, etc, is not something that just flows naturally from the human mind? That, when instructed to do so, the mind rebels, and thinks of all the ways that such an argument can be torn down?

In my challenge to write of optimism, of the virtues of children, and how everyone likes them, and why everyone likes them, I find that such purity of purpose slips away, and I become a mere man of straw, existing to be shot down. Perhaps beauty and goodness and truth is not something that will simply flow out of us like blood. Perhaps, instead, it is something that we must contemplate and carefully postulate, something to be held dearly and appreciated, rather than spewed forth like a clenched-down hose. If to understand goodness is a long and arduous challenge, not a intrinsic, easy right, then challenge accepted.

Short, Lyric Passage

Assignment: Write an imitation of one of the short lyric passages that I handed out in class. We did Patricia Hampel's body memory already. After each passage you'll see suggestions for how to imitate it, but you have a lot of leeway. You might use it simply as a prompt, or you might try a close imitation of form and/or style. Imitating is just a writerly practice that people have found works.

Personal Note: Oh. Um. Hrrm. Evidently, I was supposed to imitate one of those passages. Whoops. I'm in my Introduction to Logic class, and something on one of the slides just set me off. Hopefully something not based on one of the passages, but something that I think still fits the criteria of a short lyric passage will do.

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Given the statements

Which of the following must be true?

Given the experiences

Which of these lessons have you learned?

Given the finite days in your whole life

Which of the following will you sacrifice?

In a life of infinite opportunity,

How do you cope with infinite loss?

Given the chance to turn away

Will you hide from all the uncrossed paths?

Given the ability to make a choice

Will you pretend it was the only one?

Given exposure to all we could be

Will you be the mourner of all we could not?

In our finite life of infinite lives

How will I answer the life that I have?

By living.

Cubing - On the Body Memory

Instructions: Spend two minutes writing about each of these things. The subject is on the first body memory I just wrote.

WHO

The who is very much my mother, the person I'm clinging too, the source of comfort, of warmth, of person. The who is also me, myself, the child that I was, the child that on some level is still me, the me that was there in that church, had been there before, but was becoming more and more aware, of awareness awakening within me, and the fear of these new things I was aware of. I returned to that other person, my mother, not even really my mother, just the presence of my mother, something that meant she was there. Just a leg, a bit of clothing, a smell, something to hold on to was enough to calm the me that feared and let him become a me that looked around and wondered at what this world was.

WHAT

What was I remembering, exactly? I was remembering being in the children's room with my mother at church. I was remembering what it felt like to be so small, to live in a world that small, a world small enough that a simple calf was the focus of my world, a part of a person, not even a whole person. What was I doing? I don't know. I don't remember purpose back then because... I don't even remember a because. There was no because. I just was what I was. I was existing, examining, absorbing, learning, trying to process a world that had only one pillar of familiarity.

WHERE

Where was I? I was in the middle of a pew, probably the front pew, in the small room that had been set up for families with small children in the church my mother took our family too. I can remember that room now, because I know it so well from when I was older, but at the time my world was everything below the walls of the pew, the walls that were a bit taller than I. There was a seat I could barely clamber on and off of, there were the legs of people to my left and right, there was the booming voice of what I now know as the priest, saying things I did not bother to understand, there were the singing voices of the legs that stood up and sat down, voices floating down from high above me.

WHEN

When was this? Good question. I can only estimate, I was too young to understand the concept of age at the time. Being only a tad bit taller than my mother's knee, I was probably somewhere between 2-4, I think I was fairly tall for a toddler. It was a time of transition between infant and toddler, between baby and child, between animal and person. Yes, I had lived in the world a few years already, but now I was becoming aware of the world, starting a process of becoming aware of the world that I haven't even stopped to this day. Now I have things to base new discoveries on, knowledge to rationalize new things, but not then... Then, everything was new.

WHY

Why do I remember that? To be sure, there are other body memories I have that are equally distant to me. I have no way of measuring which comes first, whether the cold wind blowing on my face, or squishy wet sand between my toes, or a car seat strapping me down, (I never did like being strapped down like that), but I chose this memory of my mother, this memory of dependency on my mother, of her being the only familiar thing in an unfamiliar world. So why did I chose this memory to write about? It's not like I have the happiest of relationships with her at the moment. Old wounds are being opened up, and I'm recognizing faults.

HOW

How? How what? How did I feel? How did I remember? How do I justify writing such a thing in such a time in such a place? Place is easy, time is not. How do I know why I do what I do? The answer is I don't. You don't either. None of us do. We can rationalize and reason and understand, and these are good things to try and do, but somewhere in the back of our minds we must accept that everyone operates on a level unknowable to us, even ourselves, that we might just be wrong. Of course, by that same principle, my preaching that everyone must accept this could also be flat-out wrong. How do I wright?

Free Write #1

Flesh-colored stockings. The first phrase in my body-memory, and the phrase that first stuck out to my reader. I'm not even sure why. No, that's not true, I have suspicions, but it's hard to keep up with thoughts when one must write constantly. That is the purpose of a free write, to never stop writing. Normally, I don't have too many problems with this because I perform my free writes with pencil and paper, where my words do not appear on the page as fast as I can think of, so there is a queue, a buffer of thoughts that stands between me and the page that I can always draw from. Here, now, I am typing my thoughts, and my fingers deftly move across the keyboard at only a tiny bit slower than what I actually think, causing my mind to look over it's shoulder and go "oh crap", as it realizes that it must think of what to write faster, in order to not get stuck in the pit of writing "I don't know what to write I don't know what to write I don't know what to write."

But is that pit such a bad place to be? It's good to not know, on occasion, and even better to acknowledge the not knowing. Ignorance is rarely considered a virtue, but ignorance of our ignorance is almost certainly a not-good thing, a bad thing, a sin? No, not a sin, I don't like that word, that concept. A sin implies a deep wrong against the nature of the world, the world itself, it's inhabitants. A sin is something that must be deeply atoned for, because you have wronged, you have done wrong, you are in some way wrong, and that is bad, bad, bad. It implies judgement and flagellation and self-flagellation and everything but, perhaps, acceptance. It's funny, then, that sin is a concept most often associated with Christianity, a religion that preaches forgiveness of sins. Yes, one does not always practice what one preaches, but the texts of Christianity all have the forgiveness of sins in common.

Heh, here I am talking about sin and religion, halfway through the ten minutes of this free write, while my original phrase was flesh-colored stockings. What does one even say about flesh-colored stockings? To be certain, I can probably come up with something. I am (in)famous for my ability to ramble, so I'm certain I could talk about something, and a free write is basically me letting my rambling go wild in order to keep having something to write, because we musn't stop writing for whatever period of time is allotted to us. Is this a good thing? I often wonder, someone at the monastery once told me that he realized, after a silent retreat, that we say so many unnecessary things, that we fill our lives with unnecessary chatter. Is that bad? Unnecessary isn't necessarily bad, but in terms of efficiency, is considered an unideal state. To be sure, my running mouth has occasionally gotten me in trouble. Indeed, it's probably gotten me in trouble more often that I realize, as my realization of when I am in trouble, while driven by a near-paranoid fear of hurting others, is a highly-imperfect sense. I find that it is when I am less afraid of what I say, less afraid of hurting others, that I am actually more aware of when I hurt people. Okay, the ten minutes is ending, so I must end. "Between me and your muse, your muse always wins." But my muse will concede, and let me return.

First Body Memory

"First body memory - clinging to my mother's flesh-colored stockings, my arms wrapped around her calf, my head trying to make a pillow out of a knee. It was dark and brown, everything was dark and brown, the wooden walls of the pews that towered above me, the ceiling, the seats, the skirt my mother wore, and the stockings that I clung to. They were coarse, not soft, but there was almost a regularity to their coarseness that made them soft, made them comforting to touch as bodies all around stood and sat and stood again while some vague voice boomed from speakers in distance. The muscles that moved beneath, the subtle smell that was so familiar, it said to me, 'This is a person. This is your person. Hold on to them.'

Hold on to them.

The Little Anchor That Couldn't

Assignment #1, Creative Non-Fiction

It was the classic Cape Cod summer day. The sun shined bright through the gentle wisps of clouds, the wind made playful waves in the estuary reeds, and the wide stream sparkled as it flowed, making promises of the ocean to come. It was, as my dad put it, "no day to be dry".

My dad had borrowed a friend's sailboat for our vacation on the cape; a little thing, white and single-sailed, the perfect size to fit myself and my younger sister on an expedition to fish on the idyllic bay downstream. We left lazily, letting the current carry us out, my sister and I peering over the side, secured by lines tied to our overstuffed life-jackets.

Now, being the impertinent, precocious child that I was, I had some significant skepticism regarding the feasibility of fish-catching off a sailboat. In the course of stubbornly interrogating my father, I asked "How will we stop if it's windy? We'll be blown away!". Far too busy with trying to bait hooks and steer the boat at the same time, my father directed me to investigate the small compartment under the bow. Upon doing so, I discovered a peculiar object that I did not recognize. It was a dull-grey, somewhat lumpy, and a little larger than my head. A length of rope attached it to the boat, though for what purpose I could not, at that time, fathom.

"I found it!" I called back to my father, who was trying to untangle my sister from her own fishing line.

"Great!", he called back, "Throw it overboard!"

"What?" I asked incredulously.

"Throw it overboard!" my father repeated more insistently, endeavoring to stop my sister from twirling like a ballerina.

Having been scolded more than a few times before for letting things fall overboard, the instruction baffled me, but I wisely decided not to push my luck and hurriedly followed orders. There was a satisfying plop as the object fell into the sea, and I watched it with a sort of curiosity, wondering how such a thing would solve the problem of our drifting. I was quickly distracted, however, by the prospect of casting my own fishing line and promptly forgot the object, trusting in my father's infinite sailing wisdom.

It was my dear sister that noticed it first. The two of us were holding our rods in opposite directions, wondering just what the heck was so fun about this fishing thing anyway, while my father stretched out over most of the length of the small boat, taking up the serious job of making sure we didn't impale ourselves. I vaguely recall hearing my sister sigh, before suddenly exclaiming "Oh! Daddy, are we going to the beach?".

"Hrrrrmm?" my father mumbled, raising himself off the deck slightly at first, glimpsing out from under his hat, before abruptly sitting up. Following his gaze, I noticed that the beach was indeed quite a bit closer, as were the rocks that lined it like teeth. We had drifted quite aways, prompting my father to give me an inquisitive look.

"Seamus, didn't you cast out the anchor?" he asked me, looking out at the ocean.

"Uh huh." I nodded, pointing out at the ocean. "It's right over there."

"Right over..." My father's voice trailed off as he followed my gesture about thirty feet from the boat. He stared for a long moment, before turning to me.

He looked at me.

I looked at him.

He looked at me.

I looked at him.

And all the while, the little anchor bobbed happily on top of the waves.

"Seamus..." he began, finally.

"Yes?" I asked, putting on my best innocent face. I had no idea what was going on, of course, but every child has a well-honed sense of when to use that innocent face.

"What did you throw overboard?"

"The anchor."

"Anchors don't float, Seamus."

"They don't?"

"No."

"Oh."

Another long moment of silence passed.

"I'm pretty sure that one's floating, Dad."

Needless to say, the offending object was pulled in and thoroughly examined. It was indeed an anchor, it just, well, floated. To this day, I never let my dad cast out an anchor without a friendly (infuriating) reminder to check for floating, to which he promptly asks if I think I'd make a better anchor if tossed overboard. Jesting aside, however, the young me learned an important lesson from that day. However, it is up to you, dear reader, to determine what that lesson is, for I cannot possibly remember.

The Beginning

And thus begins the creation of a space where I will write. A space ostensibly created for the purposes of the class Creative Non-Fiction, but, given the nature of the assignments, quite likely a place for my own ramblings. My own ramblings will have to wait, however, as I need to type up and finish an assignment first. (herp derp)