Backyard safari.
Fain has re-introduced me to a number of interesting pasttimes in the last few months. I suppose, in truth, I've been introducing him to pasttimes, but I would have completely forgotten about them if he hadn't come along to remind me.
We have a bug hut and a butterfly net, and he watches as I stumble ineffectually after my ethereal quarry. Those butterflies are quicker and cleverer than you might think. I haven't caught one yet. I have captured several neon grasshoppers with bulging eyes and hairy talons. I can't help feeling like a big game hunter on a much smaller scale. But imagine if a grasshopper were as large as a lion! To be perfectly frank, the lunging monsters frighten me, but I stare danger and fear in the eye and laugh if it will amuse my little raja.
Mimicking animals is also quite a lot of fun. I'll hop all over the front yard in a dramatic modernist interpretation of a cricket or flap my arms and caw like a grackle. The act of appearing insane to anyone but a toddler is liberating. As long as that one little person is laughing, the rest of the world be damned.
Drawing with over-sized crayons is another wonderful pasttime that I'd forgotten. Yesterday I drew a blue bird, a red dog, a boat, and a self-potrait. They all exhibited a dismal lack of talent in the arts, and yet they made me feel good all the same.
Another thing that I've remembered while watching Fain learn to stand and walk is that half the fun is in falling or in that titillating moment just before the fall, the wavering, the thrill of trying.
I hold that in my mind as I practice guitar. I play the same two chords over and over again. I tell myself that there's no rush because the point is the thrill of trying. Not some final objective. Not an A+. I enjoy the sound of those two chords. I take the time to hear the subtlety of their tones, the slight bending of the sound waves as I travel from one chord to the other. I force myself to quit worrying about whether I will be able to move my fingers adequately and just practice, accepting that inherent in the term "practice" is the idea of "not perfect."
We have a bug hut and a butterfly net, and he watches as I stumble ineffectually after my ethereal quarry. Those butterflies are quicker and cleverer than you might think. I haven't caught one yet. I have captured several neon grasshoppers with bulging eyes and hairy talons. I can't help feeling like a big game hunter on a much smaller scale. But imagine if a grasshopper were as large as a lion! To be perfectly frank, the lunging monsters frighten me, but I stare danger and fear in the eye and laugh if it will amuse my little raja.
Mimicking animals is also quite a lot of fun. I'll hop all over the front yard in a dramatic modernist interpretation of a cricket or flap my arms and caw like a grackle. The act of appearing insane to anyone but a toddler is liberating. As long as that one little person is laughing, the rest of the world be damned.
Drawing with over-sized crayons is another wonderful pasttime that I'd forgotten. Yesterday I drew a blue bird, a red dog, a boat, and a self-potrait. They all exhibited a dismal lack of talent in the arts, and yet they made me feel good all the same.
Another thing that I've remembered while watching Fain learn to stand and walk is that half the fun is in falling or in that titillating moment just before the fall, the wavering, the thrill of trying.
I hold that in my mind as I practice guitar. I play the same two chords over and over again. I tell myself that there's no rush because the point is the thrill of trying. Not some final objective. Not an A+. I enjoy the sound of those two chords. I take the time to hear the subtlety of their tones, the slight bending of the sound waves as I travel from one chord to the other. I force myself to quit worrying about whether I will be able to move my fingers adequately and just practice, accepting that inherent in the term "practice" is the idea of "not perfect."
posted by Autumn at 1:18 PM
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