Nov
30
The Music in Your Head
Filed Under Baby Book
12-01-07
I wrote a poem while living in Brussels a few years ago. I guess I wrote it for you, baby boy:
the king is in
the palace as I
type these words
I know this
because the flag
flies above it
unfurling and flapping
in arhythmic snaps
as if to say
play what music
you will
I will dance only
to the music in my head
Great report this morning from Dr. McCay. All seems in order in the parts and cervix department. Came home and cooked bacon and eggs to celebrate. What’s better than bacon and eggs on a sunny weekend morning? Gave Oliver a piece too. We’re all in this together.
This Monday will be 31 weeks. At 32 weeks baby is viable and we can breathe a small sigh of relief. Yesterday we got out the flashlight and pressed the beam up against Jodi’s belly to make the baby move. Just for kicks, so to speak. Baby flinched, as if to say, “yo, I’m trying to get a little shuteye up in here.” We did it a few more times. Teehee!
Last night I got Jodi snuggled up with a fire and a pot of her favorite Aveda tea then drove into SF for some first rate Bay area folk rock. The scene was intimate and cool and I was digging the soulful crowd. As I flowed to the music I felt solid about having a kid. Thought to myself, “how cool and natural would it be at this moment to have a baby hanging off me in a sling.” Remembered back to when I saw Michael Franti rip an open mike poetry night five years ago with his newborn asleep in a sling on his chest. He bellowed and roared and tore the lid off that room whilst his kid slept like an angel to the beat of his old man’s heart.
I once saw a lanky white guy dancing in the sunshine at the Telluride Bluegrass Festival and that guy was about the worst dancer I ever saw, a real victim of white man’s disease. But I tell you what, that guy was in his own pure place lost in that music and I LOVED HIM and wanted him to dance on forever. As the Spanish saying goes, “dance like nobody’s watching and make love like it’s never gonna hurt.” That’s how I want you to dance, little baby. And how I want you to sing. Whatever the music is in your head, sing the hell out of it! Get lost in it.
I don’t pretend to be wise. I’m hacking away like everybody else. But I hope with all my heart for you to be wiser than me. To be as pure as one can be in a polluted world. Be a better listener. Better lover. Better reader. Writer. Surfer. Painter. Make others cry with the purity of your actions. Let yourself cry at the purity of your thoughts. Sob in movie theaters. It is a secret joy of your father’s. Be calm, little man, and if you would be so kind, hold my hand without shame.
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love the last sentence made me all teary eyed.