Joy

I love how at times she becomes totally beside herself. When she sees Dave, for example, she just cannot contain her joy. When he walks through the door, she yelps and nearly wriggles her way out of my arms. When she sees me in the mornings coming to open the curtains and pick her up from the crib, she turns towards me and grins so wide her pacifier falls right out. When did I last feel such undiluted delight?

This is what I love about her, how she lives so wholeheartedly. If she wants to get somewhere, she gets this zany you-can’t-stop-me glazed look in her eyes as she starts the slow and rather pitiful-looking process of dragging herself there. Her only volume is LOUD YELP. Want more food? YELP. Happy to see me? YELP. Like the cats? YELP. She waves at, well, anything. Lots of times I’ll be trying to get her to wave at some person and find to my embarrassment she’s waving at a nail on the wall in the opposite direction.

She is just as transparent in her fear as her delight. She is completely devastated by the most random things, like a candle flame or the sound of garlic frying in oil. She is clearly going through a period in which she realizes not only that I exist, but that I can go away and not come immediately back, which frightens her so much that at times I can’t put her down without her breaking into tears.

This is something we’ve lost, this transparency and joy. Learning to hide our emotions is part of growing up, but I think about how much of my life I live half-heartedly. I think about her delight in seeing people, in eating food, in a tune or a book, and I think how much I have lost. Because I am rushed, because I am tired, because I take things for granted, because I gave it up long ago on my way to getting somewhere.

This is part of the privilege of being a mother, this re-experiencing of things with her. We experiment with the tastes and textures of food. We play the guitar, dance to music, read books, chase the cats. Her joy is contagious, and even just her bobbing and grinning face in the crib each morning reminds me to stop being grumpy and be happy for a new day.