Nootchie has learned to sit up- by herself! She’s so
ecstatic about this feat, yet another wonderful and newfound vicissitude of her
tiny existence, that all she can do is shake, rattle and roll, mainly her
rattle that is, but with marked brio. Alas, she still does not have the complete
know how yet as to how to form discernible and real words like Wow! Wowee! This is so cool!!! But she
has figured out how to emit this long, soulful sigh.
The sigh is somewhat deceptive and at first seems to carry
the weight of the world on her diminutive shoulders. It emanates from way down
in her essence and is low and plaintive, a kind of soft growl. It trills. If
she were in glee club she definitely would be singing harmony, if in jazz she’d
be scatting. But there’s also a distinct “nobody knows the trouble I’ve seen”
aspect to this quietly forceful though subtly spirited ribbon of sound. It is
quite moving.
Upon first hearing the sigh I imagined she had channeled all
the philosophers of the world and settled finally on the existentialists, or
maybe the nihilists. I began to see
Nootchie as a weary octogenarian who had just hobbled to the supermarket and
was in the arduous process of shlepping her bags home, or perhaps a young
public school teacher at the end of a long day and more than a few unruly
students. A surgeon following a difficult transplant, or an exercise nut who
had finally overdone it. A member of the clergy saddened and disillusioned by
the flock. Shades of a favorite poem, Gerard Manley Hopkins poignantly immortal “Spring and Fall
to a Young Child,” suddenly came into
mind: Margaret are you grieving over
goldengrove unleaving.. . . All the
cares of the universe seemed ineluctably captured and encased in that one weary
exhalation of tension freeing yoga breath.
But then I realized that somehow I had gotten it all wrong,
and as usual it was just a matter of perception. This clearly was a sigh of pure
exhilaration. I can sit and almost turn over, twice she thinks, and soon I will be able to get across that room on hands and
knees without being carried like a warm, smiley, happy lump- exceedingly cute
and cared for, but still a curious bundle of dependent adorableness with
limited free will. Si-i-i-gggghhh! This is so completely Wowee- on steroids baby- and frankly, I can’t
wait. But first, a nap.
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