Baby, Oh Baby
The world is full of wonders, and nothing illustrates as well as that of new life emerging. For humans, the birth of a child is truly life changing for both mother and child (and sometimes the father but hormonally it is the mother who experiences bodily changes). In reading Paul Simon's biography this became an interesting side note, him spotting the menu offering at a Chinese restaurant, that of a dish with both chicken and egg and aptly titled Mother & Child Reunion, which led to the song. It was a time in his life when he was going through a difficult time, everything falling into his lap (he would soon become one of the wealthiest songwriters of that time) and yet feeling so unhappy; all of this caused him to cry in the shower and wonder if he was actually crazy (he would later take that thought and write the hit song Still Crazy After All These Years). But even more interesting was the reflection by Christie Watson on her 20 years of nursing in the UK (she's now an award-winning author of fiction). Her book, The Language of Kindness, talks of part of the differing work in the neo-natal wards: Babies (and children to a lesser degree) compensate to ensure they protect their vital organs for as long as possible. Babies keep their blood pressure at normal levels, for example, until they are about to have a cardiac arrest, whereas 80 percent of adults show clinical signs of deterioration for twenty-four hours before arresting...Some of the physiological signs that babies show when they are deteriorating are anatomical: their ribs, for example, sit vertically, so they are unable to take deep breaths, and instead take faster breaths, using accessory muscles to suck in air whenever possible, even bobbing their heads and flaring their nostrils. But there are advanced compensatory mechanisms that cannot be fully explained by anatomy. A baby in serious respiratory failure will grunt, blowing out air in such a way that they are forcing their own alveolar in the lungs open in the same way as a mechanical ventilator, making their own PEEP (positive end expiratory pressure), which is one of the settings the doctors prescribe on their complicated life-support machines. By keeping the smallest parts of their lungs open in this way, they are avoiding having to blow the difficult first part -- like a child at a birthday party asking the parent to start blowing the balloon. Only babies have this ability to grunt, to compensate. They keep their blood pressure normal to perfuse (send oxygenated blood to) their brains much longer than an adult can. They have spots on the top of the head --the fontanelle-- allowing brain swelling that would certainly kill an adult. They have soft, pliable bones that are difficult to break. In many ways they are so fragile, but their instincts are incredibly strong. An adult loses those protective abilities, or perhaps the will to survive at all costs. As we become physically stronger, life makes us more emotionally fragile.
I am fascinated by such common medical details, especially those that emerge from something as fragile as newborns; our bodies, our world around us, is so amazingly intricate and yet we seem to not notice. Political speeches (again), Kardashian somethings (who??), celebrity trials, the trivial seems to capture our eyes and ears (and reporters) far more than the record heat of our changing planet or the wildfires or the diminishing resources now transformed and making it to our ocean bottoms. There are some real things happening right before us and for the most part, we seem to be adrift in la-la land, captivated by the magician's code of distraction. For me, as I continue to clear out some old files and such, I came across a piece of mine on my (step)father's passing nearly 20 years ago: Sometimes we feel so above it all, as if untouchable, that there is nowhere we can't build a road or clear a forest. But when the water begins to diminish, or the trees begin to burn (or the blood begins to thin) we realize that we are nowhere near the strong and mighty we envisioned, but rather are the humble and the meek. We don't want to die, or even grow sick. But we become lulled into a sense of eternity, our home, our relationships, our life won't really change, at least not radically. And yet we miss the changes all around us every single year --the flowers, the butterflies, even the flies themselves with their 72-hour lives-- us. Life and death swirls around us nightly...look at the stars. Look! But we seldom do. Whatever it is, it'll be there tomorrow so why bother? But tomorrow your knee may give out, or your cat may need surgery, or your wife may walk out...or your father may die. We all think we're ready, but we're not. And as if slapping us in the face, time moves on, unemotional, unmoved and unaffected. Time becomes our father, as if peeking into the bedroom and knowing that we're just pretending to be asleep, then slowly closing the door without saying a word as if to let us know that we're adults now and the consequences are ours.
We may not have to worry about all this, after all, how can we stop and asteroid from hitting us (one came pretty close not long ago) or a black hole swallowing us up whole as if we were little more than a piece of kibble. Remember that piece on the size of our sun as compared to our earth; here were the words of theoretical physicist Christophe Galfard: If mankind could, one way or another, harvest all the energy the Sun radiates in one second, it would be enough to sustain the entire world's energy-needs for about half a billion years...As you fly closer and closer to that star of ours, however, you realize that the Sun is not as big as when you saw it 5 billion years in the future, as it reached its end. Still, it is big. To put things into perspective, if the Sun were the volume of a large watermelon, the tiny Earth would lie some 140 feet away -- and you'd need a magnifying glass to see it. Now comes news that a new black hole has been discovered by Australian astronomers, a massive black hole, one large enough to devour something the size of our sun every two days (the black hole itself is the size of 20 billion of our suns...and it's growing!). Said the astronomers, it is producing so much heat and friction that its thousands of times brighter than an entire galaxy.
Sometimes we can look back at the grand life of a star, a human one this time; on finishing the Paul Simon book, as it looked back over all of his awards and accolades, I couldn't help but wonder what was going on in his 77-year old mind. Are such people any different than someone who's worked in the mines or cleaned houses or pounded nails and was now confined to a gurney or sore each morning? Probably not. Life goes by quickly for everyone and in the end, does little more than make each of us look back and either smile, or ponder, or wonder what we would have done differently, if anything. A fly in the end. 72 hours or 72 years, it's all relative. Way back, again nearly 20 years ago, there was a piece in Harpers by Arthur Krystal (yes, another piece I kept in my files for some reason). His wry observation began this way: You who are about to read this, I salute you. Not because you are going to die anytime soon, but because you are going to die. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but one day your day will come. Don't think I enjoy pressing your nose against the grave. I don't. It's just that I have a bone to pick with death -- 206, to be precise, all of which will soon enough be picked clean by time and the elements. I'll just come out and say it: I am appalled at the prospect of my own extinction, outraged at the certain loss of someone I know so well. Now you might think the universe minus me is no great matter, and, of course, you'd be right. In my defense, however, I should like to point out that no one remotely like me has ever been born; no one remotely like me will ever come again. Do I need to say, I am speaking of you as well?
My friend always updates me on a few of his Buddhist teachings, one of which is letting go. The more you let go of things, he says, of possessions, of problems, of thoughts, the easier things -- even death-- will be. We are trapped in a stage of human doing and not human being, as if we feel this imaginary need to always be busy and thus have no time to look up at the stars...check emails, binge watch that series, check that we've made the number of steps on our wrist device, checked in with Siri or Alexa or whatever other non-human voice is out there. Important things, things that have to get done...or not. Back then, in writing about my father moving on, I came full circle about his passing, noting a commentary from the now defunct magazine Common Boundary which pointed out that we should look at dying people with the same compassion and love that we give to infants: Even a colicky baby, who cries continuously, is not left in isolation. What do we do with that child? We respond with unconditional loving and care, not just as a family but as a community. Then came my words: And so with the unimaginable vastness of the universe, the unimaginable spectre of death, it seems to boil down to this...our environment, our religions, our writings, our universe, even the future of ourselves, are merely pieces of faith. In the end, as in the beginning, there is only one true thing...our direction. We can cause horrors or we can cause miracles; we can tell lies or we can tell truths, we can hate or we can love, we can seek knowledge or we can seek wisdom...My father is gone. But I am here, as are you reading this. Life at this time continues, waiting only for our direction. "We already know how to let go," writes Jack Kornfield. "We do it every night when we go to sleep; and letting go, like a good night's sleep, is delicious." Letting go of anger, letting go of judgement, letting go of hate...letting go of life. To my father, to you, and to myself, a wish for letting go...sweet dreams.
Time of let go, to focus of what is real, not only to you but to the world. A recent song of mine brought these words: Pools of tears and hopes and fears and wondering just who you are; and wondering if you're made of stars and if the gods are there? Mystery comes everyday like childhood and work and play; questions come from near and far just asking who you are. Some questions are never answered...but perhaps we can at least discover that we are heading in the right direction. Sweet dreams indeed...
I am fascinated by such common medical details, especially those that emerge from something as fragile as newborns; our bodies, our world around us, is so amazingly intricate and yet we seem to not notice. Political speeches (again), Kardashian somethings (who??), celebrity trials, the trivial seems to capture our eyes and ears (and reporters) far more than the record heat of our changing planet or the wildfires or the diminishing resources now transformed and making it to our ocean bottoms. There are some real things happening right before us and for the most part, we seem to be adrift in la-la land, captivated by the magician's code of distraction. For me, as I continue to clear out some old files and such, I came across a piece of mine on my (step)father's passing nearly 20 years ago: Sometimes we feel so above it all, as if untouchable, that there is nowhere we can't build a road or clear a forest. But when the water begins to diminish, or the trees begin to burn (or the blood begins to thin) we realize that we are nowhere near the strong and mighty we envisioned, but rather are the humble and the meek. We don't want to die, or even grow sick. But we become lulled into a sense of eternity, our home, our relationships, our life won't really change, at least not radically. And yet we miss the changes all around us every single year --the flowers, the butterflies, even the flies themselves with their 72-hour lives-- us. Life and death swirls around us nightly...look at the stars. Look! But we seldom do. Whatever it is, it'll be there tomorrow so why bother? But tomorrow your knee may give out, or your cat may need surgery, or your wife may walk out...or your father may die. We all think we're ready, but we're not. And as if slapping us in the face, time moves on, unemotional, unmoved and unaffected. Time becomes our father, as if peeking into the bedroom and knowing that we're just pretending to be asleep, then slowly closing the door without saying a word as if to let us know that we're adults now and the consequences are ours.
We may not have to worry about all this, after all, how can we stop and asteroid from hitting us (one came pretty close not long ago) or a black hole swallowing us up whole as if we were little more than a piece of kibble. Remember that piece on the size of our sun as compared to our earth; here were the words of theoretical physicist Christophe Galfard: If mankind could, one way or another, harvest all the energy the Sun radiates in one second, it would be enough to sustain the entire world's energy-needs for about half a billion years...As you fly closer and closer to that star of ours, however, you realize that the Sun is not as big as when you saw it 5 billion years in the future, as it reached its end. Still, it is big. To put things into perspective, if the Sun were the volume of a large watermelon, the tiny Earth would lie some 140 feet away -- and you'd need a magnifying glass to see it. Now comes news that a new black hole has been discovered by Australian astronomers, a massive black hole, one large enough to devour something the size of our sun every two days (the black hole itself is the size of 20 billion of our suns...and it's growing!). Said the astronomers, it is producing so much heat and friction that its thousands of times brighter than an entire galaxy.
Sometimes we can look back at the grand life of a star, a human one this time; on finishing the Paul Simon book, as it looked back over all of his awards and accolades, I couldn't help but wonder what was going on in his 77-year old mind. Are such people any different than someone who's worked in the mines or cleaned houses or pounded nails and was now confined to a gurney or sore each morning? Probably not. Life goes by quickly for everyone and in the end, does little more than make each of us look back and either smile, or ponder, or wonder what we would have done differently, if anything. A fly in the end. 72 hours or 72 years, it's all relative. Way back, again nearly 20 years ago, there was a piece in Harpers by Arthur Krystal (yes, another piece I kept in my files for some reason). His wry observation began this way: You who are about to read this, I salute you. Not because you are going to die anytime soon, but because you are going to die. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but one day your day will come. Don't think I enjoy pressing your nose against the grave. I don't. It's just that I have a bone to pick with death -- 206, to be precise, all of which will soon enough be picked clean by time and the elements. I'll just come out and say it: I am appalled at the prospect of my own extinction, outraged at the certain loss of someone I know so well. Now you might think the universe minus me is no great matter, and, of course, you'd be right. In my defense, however, I should like to point out that no one remotely like me has ever been born; no one remotely like me will ever come again. Do I need to say, I am speaking of you as well?
My friend always updates me on a few of his Buddhist teachings, one of which is letting go. The more you let go of things, he says, of possessions, of problems, of thoughts, the easier things -- even death-- will be. We are trapped in a stage of human doing and not human being, as if we feel this imaginary need to always be busy and thus have no time to look up at the stars...check emails, binge watch that series, check that we've made the number of steps on our wrist device, checked in with Siri or Alexa or whatever other non-human voice is out there. Important things, things that have to get done...or not. Back then, in writing about my father moving on, I came full circle about his passing, noting a commentary from the now defunct magazine Common Boundary which pointed out that we should look at dying people with the same compassion and love that we give to infants: Even a colicky baby, who cries continuously, is not left in isolation. What do we do with that child? We respond with unconditional loving and care, not just as a family but as a community. Then came my words: And so with the unimaginable vastness of the universe, the unimaginable spectre of death, it seems to boil down to this...our environment, our religions, our writings, our universe, even the future of ourselves, are merely pieces of faith. In the end, as in the beginning, there is only one true thing...our direction. We can cause horrors or we can cause miracles; we can tell lies or we can tell truths, we can hate or we can love, we can seek knowledge or we can seek wisdom...My father is gone. But I am here, as are you reading this. Life at this time continues, waiting only for our direction. "We already know how to let go," writes Jack Kornfield. "We do it every night when we go to sleep; and letting go, like a good night's sleep, is delicious." Letting go of anger, letting go of judgement, letting go of hate...letting go of life. To my father, to you, and to myself, a wish for letting go...sweet dreams.
Time of let go, to focus of what is real, not only to you but to the world. A recent song of mine brought these words: Pools of tears and hopes and fears and wondering just who you are; and wondering if you're made of stars and if the gods are there? Mystery comes everyday like childhood and work and play; questions come from near and far just asking who you are. Some questions are never answered...but perhaps we can at least discover that we are heading in the right direction. Sweet dreams indeed...
Comments
Post a Comment
What do YOU think? Good, bad or indifferent, this blog is happy to hear your thoughts...criticisms, corrections and suggestions always welcome.