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The unbelievable hope that people put into forgetting – here, in the babies, it is at home, here is its source (like a cord that grows with us throughout our lives and to which we cling at moments of trouble). Often there is talk of babies (and of children) who are blessed with the gift of forgetting when loss, illness, and death enter their lives. Isn’t that our hope, which is our fear of our own memory? We think our baby does not forget. A face that forgets looks different. But so does a face that remembers. It could be useful to remember this confusion (yours, mine) at some later time.

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Yes, we are convinced that our baby takes in everything (everything that we are). It would seem absurd to us if it were otherwise. If there is anyone who recognizes us, it is the baby. Only the baby is translucent, open, spacious. What is impossible (almost) for us adults, is easy for him. So we practice being without pretense (a danger that haunts us at all times) and enjoy our visibility without fear. Nothing escapes our baby (nothing of what we are); we are happy about that, it makes us feel at home (and again we are proud of being complete).  

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A day when we are concerned with ourselves (with what we are), outwardly silent, inwardly talkative. Can our baby tell?  Is our inner busyness noticeable? We think (everyone thinks this): The baby doesn’t notice. We believe that something that is visible and audible to us must be completely invisible and inaudible to the baby. As though we were simply the good parents that we are. It is here that we discover our belief in the openness and transparency of the baby. (And we see the truth teetering like the wastebasket he is trying to pull himself up on.)

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An misfortune while cutting his nails. Patiently our baby sits on my lap and suddenly reaches for a hot tanle lamp (which we had lowered a little). The shock of horror is preceded by a hush that puts a stop to the course of the wold. Until the eruption of a horrible climax in which pain reveals itself in all its power. The baby is beside himself at such perfection (which burns two of his fingertips). There is no space for accusing a guilty party, or for turning away from the pain. Everything that was the world up to this point (nurturing, loving, protective) has vanished. (It is hard for us to set aside our wish to deliver our baby from his pain long enough to gain a clear view of the pain in it entirety. When we finally succeed, our consolation is effortless.)

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This much I can say: I have now realized that the baby is not real. He is unreality pure and simple. This thought is a little painful, so it feels good to massage our baby’s feet and admire these pretty, pure toes, especially the big toe (truly quite big already), which the baby so much enjoys placing on top of the one next to it. I breathe a sigh of relief: at having escaped this trap, which I would only too gladly have stepped into, of thinking the baby is real (reality always wants to pull a fast one on us, if only as a result of our believing that she should be trusted). And as I now admire the tiny (and truly still very tiny) little toe, I think: Of course the baby is there, now it can be there all the more (and I thank reality a little for her arts of seduction).

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When it comes to work, my baby enlightens me (thumping my head with an open hand), the difference between challenging and unchallenging work doesn’t exist. All work, if you are doing it right, is challenging. It demands your attention completely, and when you meet that challenge, you are the work itself. When you are the work itself, you feel as if you have been robbed, which is at it should be: When you are at work, you should feel robbed. That is the meaning of work. If you don’t feel robbed, your work is unchallenging. (Our baby thumps my head a few more times, then he stops.)

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In the evening, after coming home from work, I feel as if I had been robbed. Tired, I find the two of you (the baby, you) awake and cheerful. It is not jealousy I feel, this theft is much subtler. Not that my work (and the hours of absence it entails) could diminish the baby’s presence, yet the two are at odds. Work is like a law of nature that everyone is subject to, and to which everyone submits with the greatest conviction, but the baby does not work. He is a nonworker in everything he does. And that’s how I feel: as if when I’m at work, my nonwork is being stolen.

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Stay with yourself when you are with me (baby wisdom without reserve). When we follow this instruction and repeat it regularly (without instructions we are lost), we are already where we should be. Indeed, we notice we are with ourselves because we are with our baby. There is a great deal of time for repetition. The slowness of his development (as far as we can see, which isn’t very far) serves our own. (We believe the daily dressing and undressing of the baby is the best illustration of the nature and stage of our development: we are definitely stepping on the spot).

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Not a day passes without the necessary opening of the baby’s diaper. A recurrent moment: warmly steaming mush and a complete absence of disgust on our side. We accept unresistingly what escapes the purity of the little body. We are good acquaintances of his excretions. They are the profane act that trains our undivided loving. Astonished, we come back again to our original capacities, which alone, it seems, make happiness possible. (Not a day passes without putting on a fresh diaper.)

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