Monat: Januar 2016

315

Das erste Jahr Babybuddha jetzt auf:

http://www.hanser-literaturverlage.de/verlage/hanser-box

We are eating together. The baby in his highchair, the throne. We (you, I) on either side. We offer him his food. The fare at our Court is truly royal. Oranges and mandarins are filleted and served in bite-sized morsels. Our baby is particularly discerning where it comes to the quality of fruit. Anything that is unripe, not ripe enough, or tasteless, he briefly sucks and then drops from his mouth. Fruit that finds his favor he devours in large quantities. We buy only the best, our consciousness of price has dropped away from us (without resistance on our part, since we aren’t shopping for ourselves). One again we find ourselves in the role of being our baby’s servants, a role we have to a large extent already grown into. We are sympathetic, helpful and useful subjects who reject the modern rejection of serving: for we know that we are dependent on our baby (something we still find it difficult to acknowledge). This dependence (which is connected to our service) it not breakable or terminable, for it knows no chains and no confinement: we serve voluntarily and out of conviction. Would you like some more Noix de Grenoble freshly crushed in a mortar with a dab of yoghurt?

 

 

 

314

Das erste Jahr Babybuddha jetzt auf:

http://www.hanser-literaturverlage.de/verlage/hanser-box

We never noticed when it started, and now it has become the rule. When our baby stands or stakes a step, he holds something in his hand; always (a wooden egg, a finger puppet, the screw top of a water bottle). That is easy to interpret, we think, because it’s obvious. The baby is holding on to something that he himself is holding. This ability has survived in us (you, me) to a much greater degree than we thought at first. Our surprise dissolves in the observation of our own proximity to objects: how often we hold something in our hand without noticing, how often we reach for things while reading, thinking, speaking, how often we forget what is in our hand. So finally, we think, we have (finally) found something in which we are very similar, perhaps even equal, to our baby, our master. But sooner than we would like, we recognize our error. Our holding on is insecurity, our baby’s holding on is security. Somewhat desperately we look over to him, he sees our plight and shows us what he is holding. Shows it to us briefly, as though to concede the object to us, and instantly we feel our urge to reach for it, but he has already lowered his arm. As if by doing that he had very briefly shown, told, revealed to us: that’s it, just that!

 

 

 

313

Das erste Jahr Babybuddha jetzt auf:

http://www.hanser-literaturverlage.de/verlage/hanser-box

This endlessly prolonged moment before the step (our baby has already made a few steps, but has maintained this moment each time). Saying that the moment is prolonged is not quire right. There’s a lack of a word for this lingering, for an inhibition that is not inhibited by anything. The baby stands and stands and stands. Then (then is one more word too many) he takes a step. Maybe one more. And another one. It seems to us that not only does nothing happen in the time between the standing and the step, but there is virtually no time at all. It seems to us that our baby is as utterly standing when he stands, and steps out as utterly when he makes a step, as we always wanted to do just about anything. To do something unconnected with what follows (or what came before). To let something happen out of itself instead of following upon something else. And not to do something until the right moment has come. Since this is not a one-off matter (is never depleted), we instantly start practicing: we stand and hold back the step we could take without effort. Our baby (he’s standing again) looks at us, wondering what we are doing. (When he looks at us like this, it frees and calms us: because our baby’s look can be so quizzical).

 

 

312

Das erste Jahr Babybuddha jetzt auf:

http://www.hanser-literaturverlage.de/verlage/hanser-box

And then our baby stands there, just stands there. So clearly upright, unbent, unencumbered (though he does seem to sway a little, but maybe this impression is misleading), that we can only marvel (no acrobatic stunt, no feat of physical prowess practiced a thousand times would astonish us more). It is (again) the perfection of the beginning. Perfect standing, without previous practice, just a few attempts that are more directed at determining the right moment and exploring the space. Not even the observation of our standing (as a model) is of any significance. With his standing, our baby has surprised us more than himself. He stands as if as a matter of course and seeks nothing less than our approval and our applause (though he has no objection to either). Then we notice that every time he stands, stands there, he is holding something in his hand (a wooden egg, a finger puppet, the screw top of a water bottle), but this, we notice, is a different theme (not entirely different, a connection with his standing does suggest itself), but if we were to look into it more closely, the moment of staying in a standing position (which the baby knows how to stretch interminably), the moment that precedes the step, that heralds it, or doesn’t, would escape us: Here, then, is where we stand.

 

 

 

 

311

Das erste Jahr Babybuddha jetzt auf:

http://www.hanser-literaturverlage.de/verlage/hanser-box

Your way of cultivating large emotions may be different from mine. And so, while you are at work again (the rich city was covered with snow overnight), we (the baby, I) have a look at the painting you lingered in front of in a dream (as if spellbound, captivated, stunned). The picture does not show anything unfamiliar: the flight from Egypt (the mother and the baby on a donkey, which is being led by two cherubs, the father walking a little behind, the bag with their wherewithal slung over his shoulder, a cloudy but not sunless day, a wide, bluish landscape in the background). Maybe it’s the  canopy, which another three cherubs are spreading over the mother with her child, that held your attention captive. It appears to be heavy and has swelling folds, yet this weight does not threaten to drag it downward. It’s like half of a roof and seems to be pushing forward more quickly than the two on the donkey, whom it is protecting from the sky. That’s it, we think (no, only I think this, the baby does not think it): this protection from the sky must have released a big feeling in you! But I cannot follow this, any more than the father in the painting (completely in the light and completely roofless) is able to follow his wife and the child (and may conceivably fall behind). (Then the baby on my back lets me hear his voice. No, this is not a dream.)

 

 

310

Das erste Jahr Babybuddha jetzt auf:

http://www.hanser-literaturverlage.de/verlage/hanser-box

Our timidity in the face of the big feelings the baby has brought out in us is diminishing. The biggest among them may be the {rediscovered) religious feelings. Seeing (and hearing) the baby as a bringer of glad tidings is still easy. What is more difficult is to extend this message to one’s own life until it becomes a ground. Without the baby (whose depiction in one church alone seems to be endlessly repeated), religious feeling has a stale and fleshless quality. With the baby it’s as if the question „What is life about?” had found its answer. But the obviousness of the answer promptly makes us wonder all over again, it’s almost as though the good questions were just starting (as though it took that one answer to get them going). But since we are rather inclined to take our time (something we’ve already learned from our baby), we content ourselves for the moment with the simpler big feelings (joy, pleasure, compassion, and a few others), and these we try out with as little restraint as possible, we happy beginners. (Our baby likes this. He likes us as beginners.)

 

 

 

309

Das erste Jahr Babybuddha jetzt auf:

http://www.hanser-literaturverlage.de/verlage/hanser-box

It was a long day for the two of us (the baby, me) while you had all but disappeared in the big city (which offers you good work). You haven’t come home yet when I put our baby to bed in the pastoral inn where we’re staying. The mood of my evening conversation with its director about bright and dark church interiors settles like a silk cloth over the sight that holds my attention: the closing of our tired baby’s eye. From above I observe this silent movement, the way the fan of long lashes along the edge of the lid’s half-moon sinks in a single smooth arc, bobs up again, then a second time with less amplitude, and then remains closed (truly a gate which — inaudibly, but with great force — falls into its lock). Light and dark, set apart by no more than this membrane of delicate skin, a symbol I cannot resist, because it has no intention of being that.

308

Das erste Jahr Babybuddha jetzt auf:

http://www.hanser-literaturverlage.de/verlage/hanser-box

Back (again) in the rich city (each time it feels a little more like a return) we (the baby, I) find access to the dome via the residence, while you linger in front a painting downstairs (as if spellbound, captivated, stunned). Our path takes us to the gallery, and up there we listen (myself sitting on a stoop next to the organ, the baby leaning against my breast) to a Mass. We are moved by the grave chant of the chorus, but then even more by the sudden motion of the worshippers rising to their feet and streaming toward the altar to receive communion. It appears to me as if all these souls were collectively breaking out of their cage, I feel the blood in my heart and intense emotion and the sense of a strangely sad gaze resting upon me. Then I realize that our baby is lying on the altar down there and being distributed, but before I can make out the details, I am already falling out of this uncanny dream.

307

Das erste Jahr Babybuddha jetzt auf:

http://www.hanser-literaturverlage.de/verlage/hanser-box

The looks we encounter are sometimes patronizing, sometimes disdainful (the patronizing ones merely brush past us until they settle on the baby: The cute little baby, what fun he has looking around without understanding anything, so much novelty to take in, his eyes look like saucers, so cute, this ignorance! The disdainful looks are like lightnings that strike us – how could we presume to bring a child into the world? – and incinerate us on the spot; no need to consider the air that remains of us. Both looks annoy us in equal measure, for our baby is wise and no one may dare to evade his sunlight. Both looks hurt us, make us imperfect, turn us into three worldless individuals. Our mistake is: we take these looks seriously. Our baby takes them seriously too, but in him this is a virtue. The divinity in him does not judge or punish: it meets the patronizing looks with a smile, and does not see the disdainful ones at all).

306

Das erste Jahr Babybuddha jetzt auf:

http://www.hanser-literaturverlage.de/verlage/hanser-box

The language we have developed between us is a common language, even though we (the baby, you, I) each speak so differently. We do not feel it is premature to ascribe language to our baby, for there is no sound that is not spoken. Nor is it right say that there is speech one side and listening on the other. The weights are differently distributed, that’s all: our baby is an excellent listener, and our speech may be more articulate. No sooner do we believe this than we are refuted by the next baby sound which we understand right away: our listening has matured — which will not fail to have an effect on our speech. However, we think, it is a private language to which we (the baby, you, I) pay homage and which we are continually developing. It’s funny, though, that we keep encountering this private language among all the young families we run into, and understand it only too well, even though it sounds utterly strange and incomprehensible to us.