I Will Remember Laughter

(Title in honor of Led Zeppelin's recent re-issue "Mothership")




One of the great moments in being a parent has got to be when the baby laughs for the first time. And I don't mean the little smile-like responses of happiness that many babies give not too long after birth, but the first real guffaws that clearly come from their own deep amusement at something they are seeing or are involved in. We went to a Japanese restaurant with friends Becky and Ted recently, well maybe a month ago now, and they were playing some techno-ish music a little bit too loud for the baby; the room was too loud in general and I don't know if they were trying to mask other noise or poor acoustics or just thought the loudish music served the hip atmosphere, kind of like bars do: playing music too loud so people can't talk as well and so perhaps drink more. The baby had been put on the floor in a corner in its carseat but I asked for a chair and brought him up closer to our level. Towards the end of our dinner, I took baby Evan up in my arms; he had done such a good job of enduring our adult time out. I began playing with him, making faces and shaking my head to the music, and he clearly started having little fits of laughter, a huge grin on his face. Ted commented, "That's amazing." And it was; to see a baby enjoying itself so perfectly, even in an environment that wasn't baby friendly. Perhaps he was having a release after sitting patiently through the noise. Anyway, it was a special moment in his life and mine.

Multiple Existential Babys

I did see that there is another blog here titled Existential Baby. I want to say that I came upon the title on my own several months ago and have been meaning to blog on the title. This one will be more about my experience as a new parent and the spiritual consequences of that whereas it looks like the other existential baby is referring to him or herself as an adult baby. The child teaches us to see our own childish or childlike motives and ways. Anyway, good enough words for multiple existential babys...

The Existential Baby

On July 18th, my partner Pamela and I became parents of a baby boy. Considering that we are both 46, the successful birth seems like a considerable acheivement, especially given the lengths some people go to in order to conceive at this age. Thankfully, Pamela is very active and healthy; we do yoga and eat largely vegetarian diets supplemented by fish and, in my case, occasional bouts of chicken. Pamela could be the greatest consumer of brocolli on the planet until her pregnancy; she eats almost an entire head of brocolli a day, although she lost her taste for the stuff while "occupied" by the child. I had always imagined I might have some sort of family since I like kids a lot more than I do adults. The joy and pleasure of a child's smile has so much more meaning than so many words spouted cleverly from the adult mouth. For whatever reasons, unsuccessful relationships etc, I found myself over 40 and childless and was quite comfortable with that. I have found the World growing more and more hostile and mean-spirited as financial issues take more and more human attention, so why would I need to bring another child into this? There are plenty of kids being born as it is. I never felt a great NEED to have a kid, just liked the romantic idea of a child being born out of a loving relationship. So our child grew from The Baby Who Did Not Have To Be into one who found a place of love to enter the world in spite of us. While there is some reluctance on my part to give myself completely to this child and promise it my attention and care, it is amazing to feel myself drawn to re-learning love and growing in my interest for him as he grows.

And that is the existential baby, the child who enters your life unexpectedly and returns you a part of yourself that you either left on the side of the road or forgot about. This journal will reflect upon the experience of having a child after the supposed lifespan of parenthood ("late") and will celebrate what is learned from the eyes of the newborn. Because the baby is so completely living in THE NOW we are taught to live here also as we share time with their clear minds. A window onto ourselves.

Our baby was not "an accident". His mother decided several years ago, after her brother had a child and she grew attached to him, that it might be an incredible experience NOT to have had ("I hope I don't end up resenting you for never having children"). So each month she tried to track her fertility and actively sought becoming pregnant. I was a reluctant but willing co-participant in this and certainly appreciated her openness to share her desire for motherhood with my ...fatherhood. So after 15 months of trying, and a certain amount of stoical loss of expectations, we were both surprised by her sudden pregnance. And thus began the life of Evan.