This memoir is being written long after my babyhood. It would have to be, wouldn’t it? My language and writing skills took many years to develop. Here are some memories from the dawn days of my arrival, when I first began to notice that I was me and not dangling toys above my crib or rattles shaking.
My first aha! moment came about 6 months into my residence on earth. I was conscious of being conscious in a basic way; noises around me and the presence of others. My self-consciousness (not the feeling-embarrassed kind) confirmed my existence. I began to ponder what I was. Not who but what.
Think of it, you’re reading these words (my thoughts) in a space completely your own – your mind. There’s no one else in there with you, is there? As you read you can give each statement a thumbs up or down like an ancient Roman. I’ll never really know your reactions as they begin to percolate. Well, being unaware emboldens my efforts. I continue.
How did I arrive ‘here’ and where did I come from? I find myself stuck in a space from which I can’t escape. That is, from ‘here,’ my body, and where my body is placed. I learn to call this place home. I’ll learn names for other areas, rooms, with openings called doors. I can’t count as yet (this numbering skill will take years of repetition) but notice three separate areas to which I’m transported. These are my earliest memories.
My body is a tricky set-up with a main area, my head, and other semi-understood attachments. I seem to be confined within my head as me. Other parts of my body I feel, see and operate with haphazard results. Much later, after decades of reading, wondering and eavesdropping on conversations, I’ll name this me as consciousness; a term picked up from others. (This habit of naming things, draping words over perceptions, makes me feel on top of whatever game this is. Names are easier on the mind and encourage confidence; a feeling I like very much.)
Back then, I began to identify and name various visitors that reached me – tastes, sights, sounds and smells. These visitors were very intrusive. They’d jump inside my head, grab my attention and demand a reaction. And hang around as long as they wanted! They are not the me that lives here but boss me around as if they were. As these visitors drop in, I find myself judging whether I enjoy their company or not. My response, emotion, is a verdict set by internal jurors. Again, it will take a long time for me to differentiate these bossy jurors.
This is an awkward description of emotions, I admit. These tidbits eventually become independent and later on, I will call them feelings, my feelings. Some feelings inundate me like waves crashing onto my shoreline. Touchy beings, these emotions. A little goes a long way and a long way can be a rocky one.
There are three rooms in this place called home and I visit them when big-bodies carry or cart me around (these bodies are like mine only bigger). I stay in these places for as long as the big-bodies allow. I really can’t go anywhere on my own. It’s alright, though, since I have no ability to maintain my upkeep whatsoever. I feel like a slab of dough where cookie-cutter hands press into me. Different caretaker big-bodies appear and disappear randomly from this awareness called me. And all of this happens without warning.
For the most part, however, I’m left alone for long periods of time enclosed in my own dreaming space. I emphasize my own because no one is in here with me. The solitude is not an unhappy one, for the most part. I learn other names for this me-space time: sleep, rest and naps. Basically, this time alone is my sole refuge and I enjoy my inner home.
I haven’t figured out the purpose of being in this body except to be carted around and taken care of by big-bodies. In the process of this experience I constantly wake up and fall asleep. While asleep I’m oblivious to my body and feel without limit in a mostly peaceful way. I feel a circumference without walls, doors or other boundaries. The next moment some big-body lifts me up and I feel compressed by layers of heaviness – body parts. So when I’m not being exhausted by these see-sawing events, I’m pondering what the heck is going on. That is, I ask myself questions and give myself answers. The answers don’t really satisfy me but they stop the stream of questions for a while.
Another thing I wonder is why I’m stuck in a body in the first place. I’m sure that if I figured out the how then I’d know the why. But I don’t know the how. Eventually I’ll be told nonsense about storks and, later, details of sex from playmates, biology teachers, TV shows and a parental admission or two. However, the mechanics of this how are not very revealing.
I’m still waiting for answers to why. Later, much later, I’ll be told to believe some answers to the why. This subject would have to be covered in another memoir.
So I live in a menagerie of scenarios that rivet my attention and demand response. The outer scene is often full of disorder and randomness. A strange feeling as in not me. I’ve an ongoing sense I was somewhere else before this chaos began but can’t describe it other than a pre-awake drifting. This drifting state doesn’t translate very well into language. Language is unfit to describe the tinges of happiness and acceptance that I sense are part of the pre-awake world.
I’m not making much sense, am I? But maybe a memoir isn’t about making sense to anyone other than the writer. I do know that I’ve been relocated to this body for an indeterminate time. And time – a room of invisible walls with mysterious doorways – is a topic I often avoid.
Language stretches out from me to you but doesn’t guarantee that the messages will translate. Words live in-between immediacy of awareness. Add in the fact that I’ve had to spend more time working on body parts – face, head, arms, back, toes – than on my inner awareness. (It took me months to coordinate my hands and feet and for what? Picking up pieces of cereal and tying shoes!)
If I knew the word absurd back then, it would have described my situation. During those early years, I had this swampy sense of the unknown. Very disquieting. Some days my body became heavy within twilight zones called sickness. The treatment for these discomforts were unpleasant and only somewhat effective. Such conditions would march right through me in fearsome forms: colds, fevers, stomach aches, measles, broken, bruised or cut body parts. I was sledding once and ran over my thumb, breaking it. The pain only hit me after my snow-suit body had thawed out.
Fear becomes another affliction. From the sledding mishap I learned to fear injury and the pain that came with it. Misery is a good catch-all term for what I’ve had to go through – infant or adult.
To really understand existence would be a big deal, wouldn’t it? Much knowing seems more like mistaken identity. The understanding of what, exactly? Effects but not the cause. Like existence. I exist but don’t know how, why, and what’s going on. My existence teeters between waking and sleeping and requires a deft handling of both – particularly when there are unpleasant encounters. Events other than sickness are ranked as accidents, bad luck and fate. These, and the illnesses mentioned, line my mental bookshelves.
Helplessness was my condition then and, years later, continued to be so. Not to mention that I arrived here without a smidgen of consent… I didn’t want to be here and don’t recall being asked! As an infant I felt a need to burst at my captivity – I cry and cry! In return, I’d hear gasps of exasperation, a coo-cooing or (rarely) an impatient shake. Perhaps a hug, the most prized of all big-body reactions, would appear and surround me. Being hugged is nice and as comforting as sleep. It makes my body feel accepted by another body. I become filled with a glow after being hugged and it is like the quiet breathing before falling asleep.
Alright, I gradually accept my helpless state and learn to adapt and cope with limitations but that’s about it. Coping is not victory over being high-jacked in the first place. And if there’s a better, more satisfying game plan, I’ve yet to find it.
I don’t understand this set-up at all. Daytime activities have some variety but are mostly repetitive. Night is spent sleeping. Ridiculous. Oh, but because it is so ridiculous, I’ll mention one crucial refuge: laughter. What is laughter? A surprise to the mind and almost always a good surprise. I’m filled with energy and forget that I’m trapped in my head. My body enjoys this jostling, too. Laughter feels honest. When laughing, I’m saying existence isn’t true at all, “Ha, ha, I knew it all along!”
As a baby, finding I can make the big-bodies laugh is a major achievement. Some examples include:
- gasses come out of my mouth and make my eyes bulge
- fluid drips from my mouth as I try to communicate
- gasses come out from somewhere below
Oh, and then the times when big-bodies place me on the bottom of the room-spaces (floor) and stare at me as I flounder around. Laughter for all. Well done, I say.
As my body grows, I spend more time looking around and trying to touch everything. Feeling stuff is important. I crawl around, inching towards something interesting until I hear, “NO, don’t touch!” Scary sounds to hear.
But I’m only translating these word-sounds after learning language. When I first heard these noises, I’d look up, notice an opening where the sounds came from (a mouth) and then two shiny balls above the opening – eyes! These shiny balls focused their central dots in my direction and I’d hear loud sounds set off when I approach things. Even if I don’t touch! Tough ropes to learn.
During awake time I see areas through clear doors they call windows which the big bodies called outside. The big-body caretakers say to me, “Does baby want to go outside?” or “What a nice day it is outside.” I realize that I am somewhere other than outside as in, “Oh, we have to stay inside since it’s raining.” But the real inside is inside my head.
I try to understand what I’m supposed to do while I’m in these rooms and with these people who call themselves Mommy and Daddy. If these people weren’t here I’d really be trapped. What a predicament. As I said, when I’m not aware of these goings-on, I’m adrift in a wonderful sea of peace. OK, this is my later-years description but it is still true. All of these observations you’re reading are true — from my standpoint. What other standpoint is there? It’s just me and my awareness. And I’ve learned that I can’t ignore the sights, sounds, words, and unpredictable events that are flung at me once I wake up.
Often, I’m pretty unsure about what I’m supposed to do with myself during awake time. As said, I can’t move around very well. I hear sounds but they don’t connect except as noises – some scary, some silly. The time of no-noise is nice (night time usually) but even then sounds can reach my attention. I want to understand everything that reaches me. Trying to understand is exhausting and a full-time job.
I finally figured out that a ticking sound that comes from a small box in my room is a clock. It never shuts up. Then there’s a sound-box in the feeding room (kitchen) that talks when the Mommy touches it (a radio). In the living room (strange name) is another noisy box with loud/soft sounds and pictures that change and flicker. The Mommy, Daddy, and I place ourselves together on a wide pillow (couch) and stare at this box. A TV, I later learn. Oh, and then there’s this ringing thing that makes the big-bodies jump up quickly. They make noises while holding this thing to the side of their heads. Yes, a telephone.
Most often I am carried to the feeding place (kitchen) where substances are brought to my lips and slide inside. Actually, they are pushed into my mouth with sounds from the Mommy who is tries to convince me I want this stuff. I really have no choice and this process takes far too long. It’s exhausting. Often the ordeal ends by a reversal of what’s being spooned into me. Sometimes I can make this happen and sometimes it happens no matter what. But it is always very unpleasant for me and the Mommy.
“She’s spitting up,” the Mommy says even if the Daddy isn’t in the room with us. She looks at me as if I understand and can do something about it. Hey, I can hardly do anything by myself! I’m having a tough enough time just keeping my body from flopping over. The Mommy quickly grabs my face and wipes this spit-up away. The action feels abrupt, uncomfortable and the wiping can push stuff into my nose and make me sneeze or have a worse eruption.
There’s an important result linked with this feeding which is called taste. Tasting is my reaction to the stuff being pushed into my mouth. Food affects me in a good way or bad way – how it tastes – which are my emotional judgments. Good or bad, I react instantly to these substances. (A reaction that will continue forever, I discover.) If I’m particularly upset by the taste, blobby drops of water push out from my eyes which is a new and valuable way to communicate emotions.
So, my days are a jumble of activities, Mommy and Daddy directed activities, I mean. My body is something I inhabit in uncomfortable bondage. Actually, it’s frightening to not know why I’m here. The other bodies seem to accept everything as is. For the most part, there is nothing for me to do but to watch and wait.
Forgive me for this last gloomy conclusion. Instead, I’ll mention something that makes me happy – a bath. This is when I am placed in an bowl filled with a warm and slippery fluid. “Time for a bath,” the Mommy says and brings me over to a puddle of floating bubbles. The puddle feels like breathing – flowing, alive. There is something so freeing about being in this pool – without a clumsy body!
Of course, I hit the water with my hands and enjoy splashing but I’m really trying to grab this marvelous stuff. Bath time makes me remember something – something like pre-awake time. If only I could remember what happens to me in sleep so I can explain the beauty of it. I’d trade it for this ‘real’ world anytime.
Whenever I’m awake and with the Mommy and Daddy or other big-bodies, I watch what they’re doing. When I want their attention, I bring as much force into my head and push it out through my mouth, hands, and feet. When I tense my belly, I can give them a big yell. When someone turns to me, I look right into their eyes to make them see me. I like to practice waving at them from this interior outpost. “I’m right here! Look over here!” And then I make my mouth smile at them.
When is a baby not a baby? Seems that it’s up to the caretakers, the big bodies, to decide. I do know that when I first got up from the floor and took a step it was heralded with gasps and ah’s. Many big-bodies came to see me wobble upright in those days. Sometimes their enthusiasm scared me back to the floor but they didn’t realize this. If I stood up on my own, it was a stupendous feat. From below my head, central command so to speak, the semi-solid bulk of my body wavered and only vaguely cooperated with my commands. So both getting up and taking steps, driving this body, was tremendously satisfying. Even in my infantile state, being told I was a “big girl” for these actions had a long-lasting effect. I still cherish that good feeling.
Well, I worked hard at being a baby and even harder to get away from being called one. Maybe I’ve never quite lost this baby status; the need to pay attention to an outer world and adapt. To manage feelings when results don’t give me what I want. To accept when people in my world don’t notice the real me, the me within. Maybe I regret having spent so much time on this outer, indifferent world. My inner self has been a loyal but often neglected companion. Maybe I’ll just sleep on it.