Wednesday, May 16, 2007

These Are the Days


La Bimba fell asleep on my chest this evening. She was doing her usual switch-hitting (boob, pacifier, boob, pacifier), tossing herself from side to side, rolling over to sit up and then crawl when, before I could flip her over AGAIN onto her back, she crawled over to me and set her little keppie on my chest. She usually pops up right away and goes back to her marathonic sleep avoidance techniques, but this time she let me gather her whole self onto my torso and she fell asleep just like when she was a teeny tiny newborn. I was singing "Landslide" when I started to tear up.


I was one cranky mofo today and demanded lots of cuddling from The Husband. Demanding cuddling is tricky: you have to manage to be cuddlable while being bossy. I haven't mastered it yet.


La Bimba and I shared some peach and fior di latte ice cream today. She's not that into ice cream. I told you, she loves her greens. Sometimes I look into her giant baby blues, at her jubilant beaming smile and think, I can't believe she's Neapolitan. There are actually plenty of blue-eyed Neapolitans. It's the smiling that is so out of character.


She now looks at The Husband and clearly states, "Babbo." I am still mamma only when she is complaining as in, "mamamamamamamamamamamamma give me back that piece of The New Yorker I was shredding!"


I am still actively avoiding writing what I need to write about. I would say I am proactively avoiding it. I have a real problem with follow-through and not just with my backhand. I also feel a bit cursed with choices, too many choices. How does one decide? Rather than decide tonight (where to move, what to focus on beyond La Bimba -- dance? writing? teaching?), I baked cookies.

1 comment:

Doug said...

Re: choices. My two cents: if you're "cursed" with being multitalented, as you are, it doesn't much matter what you choose to do. Writing, another degree, whatever -- it will turn out fine. As long as you're expressing yourself, as you have an artist's need to do that (difficult as it is!), I don't see why you should concern yourself too much with how you do it.

Practically speaking, if you have a toddler to take care of and a full-time-working husband, why not stick with the writing? It's something you're good at, that gives you pleasure, and which you can do at home. It requires no investment of any kind other than time and psychological -- no "overhead," that is.

The big clue, to me, is that you're actively avoiding writing what you "should" be writing about. That means it's important, psychologically, and that implies that if you jump to something else, you may be selling yourself short.

Anyway, don't worry too much about what you "should" be doing. Our time here is brief; make the most of it. As for options, the definition of aging is that time pares options away. No point in mourning that fact overmuch -- just grab something you're interested in and go with it. The struggle is what's important (and rewarding); the output is whatever it is.