Frailty, Thy Name is Memory - Part 2

My post yesterday got me thinking more about photographs. According to the file folder on our computer, Linda and I have taken over 900 pictures of Violet. I’m surprised by the number, too. My plan was to take one picture a day, not 20, but here we are. Why do we feel the need to capture every smile, every look, every angle of her face? Is it a bad thing? Are we overdoing it? I don’t know, but I wonder if our obsession will continue. Violet’s still a new addition to our reality; in my mind, when I think of “us” I think of me and Linda, and then I catch myself – oh, that’s right - and Violet, too. But an undeniable fact of our reality is that if we keep taking pictures at this rate, we’ll never have time to look at them all. The author Douglas Coupland recently wrote about people who “tape pretty much everything…and there’s not enough time in life to review even a fraction of those recorded memories. Kitchen drawers filled with abandoned memory cards.” I read that and it made me think of a book I read a number of years back called The Beach by Alex Garland. It was a modern day take on Lord of the Flies, only instead of schoolboys marooned on an island, it involved twentysomething vagabond travelers finding the perfect beach on the perfect tropical island and keeping it a secret. The main character was a self-absorbed young man who scoffs at the idea of taking pictures. To him, any picture he takes of an experience will limit his memories to what’s in the picture – that’s all he’ll remember. He sees pictures not as capturing memories, but as restricting them. When I read the book, the sentiment sounded familiar because I felt the same way in my early twenties. My trips to Europe, camping trips with friends, bonfires on the beach – I took few pictures because I had some high and mighty notion that it would somehow pollute the moment. And maybe it would have. It's hard to fully engage with something that you're recording, but by the time I read The Beach I realized what I wrote in yesterday’s post – memory is a faulty construction, and that wouldn’t be so bad on it’s own. I’d be happy if I could remember all the details of my youth and young adulthood, even if those details weren’t exactly true – the bigger problem is that memory is also lazy – or at least mine is, and there is so much of the past that just slips away, and if I haven’t written about it or taken a picture of it, eventually, it’s just gone. And I’m not even 40. I know I have to accept a certain amount of that – 900 pictures really is too much. It’s not practical or even logical to try and capture that much; I’d be better off just spending more time with Violet than spending too much time taking pictures of her, but I’m figuring that years from now, when Violet has grown up and moved away, and I’m waiting for her to call, or email, or Skype, or whatever we’ll be using in twenty years to communicate, I’ll be looking through the piles of pictures and videos while I wait, happy and grateful that I took more than enough.

49 days old

Frailty, Thy Name is Memory

Linda says that she can no longer remember the pain of childbirth – not the hours of contractions leading up to the delivery room nor the pain of pushing. She’s had other women tell her as much (one friend heard that there’s a hormone released after childbirth that causes a woman to forget the pain). Linda regrets that we didn’t take pictures or video of the day and night leading up to Violet’s birth, and she really wishes that she could’ve seen the birth. She freely admits that, at the time, if I’d tried to capture any of those moments on film, she would’ve fed the camera to me. I remember wondering for a brief moment as we were on our way to the hospital, ” Should I get a picture of this?” but then a contraction hit and the thought was gone. It didn’t seem right at the time. I’m not sure how I feel about the idea – pictures or video of Linda kneeling on the floor in pain or doubled over in the front seat of the car or the gory reality of birth. Those moments have their own sort of beauty, but how often would we throw that video in the DVD player or flip through those photos? So we have to rely on our own faulty memories. We both started writing our own versions of that day – neither of us have finished, and I’m amazed when I sit down to write more how much I’ve already forgotten.

48 days old

Good Morning, Good Morning

This morning I was finishing up in the bathroom, getting ready for work, when I heard Linda yell, “Bill, I need to get in there!” I opened the door to her holding Violet, splashes of spit up across and down the front of her shirt. She put Violet on the changing pad next to the sink. “She puked all over the rug in front of the couch, too.” Violet had spit up all over her own shirt and diaper, and Linda started the process of a complete diaper/clothes change. I squeezed past her to clean up the rug, and when I came back, Violet had started choking. She does it alarmingly often and for no apparent reason. Sometimes, it upsets her, and it did this morning. Linda bent over her, leaning in close to comfort her, and a moment later gave out a yell, jumping back. Violet discharged a small, steady arc of urine onto the counter, and Linda had a large, oval wet spot on the stomach of her shirt – to go along with the spit up – and a big smile on her face. It was not yet 7 AM.

47 days old

Fox in the Snow

Linda spotted a fox crossing our driveway yesterday. It moved on delicate paws, stopped for a quick survey of the surroundings, and continued on, purposefully, towards the woods. I was sorry to have missed it because I always savor a sighting of one; it’s such a rare occurrence. Not quite a feline, not quite a canine, foxes are a fluid blend of both (although strictly speaking, they are a canine), and they fascinate me. When Linda told me about the animal, I wondered if its mate was nearby. Foxes pair up in mid- to late-December, usually with the same mate each year. Anyone who makes a habit of studying animal tracks will tell you that, like clockwork, the arrival of winter coincides with a change in fox tracks. Throughout the fall, foxes are solitary, leaving a lonely, single line of tracks after early snows, but around the solstice, nearly every line of fox tracks has a companion set running parallel to it, sometimes up to two hundred yards away, sometimes just beside it, left by a mate. The two foxes roam and hunt together before establishing a den and giving birth to a liter of kits, often around Valentine’s Day. They raise the kits throughout the rest of the winter, spring, and summer, before the family breaks up at summer’s end.

As I held Violet today and looked out into the postcard snow, I thought of that fox and its mate, both of them preparing to start a family in a harsh and handsome world. I couldn’t help feeling a small measure of kinship.

46 days old

Maybe She's Just Not That Into You

Violet rarely looks directly at us. The books say that, as their sight develops, infants more often look at the edges of the objects in front of them. I think it’s nature way of making them all the more fascinating. Aren’t we all drawn to people that don’t seem interested in us? I make goofy faces, talk in a high baby voice, speak in overly excited tones – I do everything this side of standing on my head – and Violet looks juuuust off to the left of me. And I keep coming back for more.

45 days old

Just a play-by-play of the day, but it feels necessary...

It was a roller coaster of a day. Violet decided at 3:30 this morning that she wanted to stay up. I tried for a good 20 minutes to lull her back to sleep – jiggling her, walking with her on my shoulder, holding her on her side; twenty minutes doesn’t sound that long, but that early in the morning, when you have to get up for work in a couple of hours, you can’t help but feel a little panicky. I finally woke Linda up and asked her to take over. She graciously complied. Then, before I left for work, Linda pointed out a small lump at the base of Violet’s neck. It was about the size of a raisin, just under the skin, and it moved when I touched it. I told her it felt like a gland (I had no idea what it was). She called the doctor and made an appointment. So, I left for work, a little sleepy, a little worried, and a little miserable about having to leave Violet and Linda after a week at home. I talked to Linda after the appointment, and things were looking up. Violet’s weight, which we hadn’t had measured since our last doctor’s visit in early December (8 lbs, 5 oz) was up to 10 lbs. 10oz., and the doctor said she looked “perfect”. The doctor also said the lump was nothing to worry about and that it was a gland (Wow! I was right?) that was slightly inflamed, maybe due to Violet’s baby acne, and that it should go down soon. Good news! I felt better. Then I came home from work to find Linda a bit overwhelmed. She’d gone grocery shopping – never an easy task with an infant – and from then on, Violet had alternated between crying and eating. While preparing dinner, Linda had to keep one foot on Violet’s chair, rocking her. We also had made plans to continue our research into vaccines tonight. Violet’s two month appointment is coming up and the doctor will be wanting to begin the shots. We want to make informed decisions, but, man, there’s a lot of competing and conflicting information out there. It’s going to take some time to absorb it all. Now, it’s 9:30, Violet’s sleeping on the couch between us, making noises strange and soft, diapers are tumbling rhythmically in the dryer, and Linda’s finishing her dinner.

44 days old

January Blackout

My new year’s resolution is more of a month-long thing: No TV during the month of January. No movies, no TV shows, no video games. I’ve written before how I would like to get rid of our TV completely, especially now that Violet’s around, but Linda’s not completely behind the idea. She hates commercial TV, but she loves popping in a video during dinner or on a lazy afternoon. To be fair, I do, too. She says I’m into self-deprivation, and maybe she’s right, but I got the idea for this “no TV for a month” last January. I noticed that once winter sets in and we aren’t outside as much, time spent in front of the TV definitely spikes. There’s books to read, writing to be done, odd jobs around the house – but on most nights, it’s much easier to turn on the TV. After a long day at work, I feel like I earned the relaxation time, but after an hour or two spent on my butt staring at the screen, I start to feel antsy – a little guilty. Is it just me? A night spent in front of the TV, no matter how entertaining the movie or the show, no matter how many zombies I skillfully execute, is not an evening that leaves me feeling fulfilled. Time spent next to someone on the couch, both people staring at a screen, is not quality time. So I’m telling myself that it’s not about self-deprivation – it’s about self-fulfillment. Last year, with that month of the TV turned off – I read more than usual – to myself and out loud to my wife, I wrote more than usual and talked to friends more than usual (including my wife). True, come February 1st, we went a little nuts. I think we watched three or four movies that day, but the month of January was like a reset to zero. It showed me how much time I could have if I wanted it, and most nights I went to bed feeling like I accomplished something more than a day at work. Ever since Violet was born, I’ve been trying to get down on paper the story of her birth – from first contraction to mop up. Every day, I try to read at least one book to her. And a day is just not complete without at least an hour of moony-eyed staring at her. Over the course of this month, I’m hoping to keep all these balls in the air and add a bunch more. Linda may protest, but I’m thinking I might stretch the no-TV ban to two months.

PS – Before I come across sounding like a husband who won’t let his wife watch TV just because I don’t want to, I’ll point out that my no TV resolution applies only to me - Linda is free to watch TV whenever she wants. She just feels guilty turning on the TV when I’m home and won’t watch it.

43 days old

And it was good...

Violet is starting to smile. It’s not consistent yet. She does it when I bicycle her legs or now and then when we’re looking at each other (Linda’s insisting that she does it more for me and that she must like me more). There doesn’t seem to be a rhyme or reason yet, but when it does happen, it’s like looking into the face of God. Really. I’m a little frightened of the day when she learns to control her ability to smile. I will be putty.

42 days old - Happy New Year!