Nursing Buddha

Cleaning up my forever messy desk, I found a stack of old postcards. I keep most of the letters and cards sent to me. This is becoming increasingly easy to do as people just don’t send correspondence by regular mail any more. So I have a special sort of affection for this collection, since it is a fading dinosaur but alive with memories.

One of the postcards is from a woman I used to work with. A lovely woman, who kept a long blonde braid down her back at an age when most women have cut theirs off. If life were a children’s book, she would’ve been some kind of woodland fairy. Looking at the postcard, filled with her round and loopy script, reminded me of one of my favorite stories of hers, of the time she made supper for Bob Dylan. As a dedicated hippie and foodie, it was one of the most important experiences of her life. She told it so wonderfully, treated the telling like a much-loved book, turning well-worn pages slowly, lingering over the best parts. I won’t try and retell it here, it was definitely her story.

But in remembering the story, I thought someone should make a documentary of all these random people sharing their brush with Bob Dylan. I mean, honestly, who cares about Joan Baez’s recollections? She knows him well enough to forget things about him. But the doorman who once bummed him a cigarette, or the taxi driver who took him on a two hour impromptu tour of Baltimore or my friend who made him that one meal…those are the stories rich in detail because the remember-er only has that one divine moment to hold onto.

Somebody make that movie for me. Dedicate it to hand-written letters.

My favorite new thing this week: lying down on my back, I place Baby Buddha belly-down on my chest. She pushes up on her tiny baby arms, her face looming over mine. And I yell, “oh my god it’s a crazy attack baby and it’s got me, I can’t get it up, she’s too crazy and attacking, help, help” and she smiles and does her stuttering imitation of laughter. It’s pretty much as good as cooking supper for Bob Dylan.

This awesome onesie has a cookie sewn on the front and beneath that says “tough cookie”. I love this onesie so very much. But super active Baby Crazy would not cooperate in letting it be photographed. Just trust me, it’s awesome. Much in the way her chubby thighs are awesome.

Important recent milestones I have to remember here since I’m a bad mom who isn’t keeping a baby book: rolling over from back to belly, extremely steady head, holding her head up, baby push-ups on her belly, excellent at sitting up with some assistance, laughter but only when you work really hard for it, smiles and coos all the time, and this really hilarious attempt at crawling that involves some knees and her face…once she realizes arms work better than face in matters of mobility, we are in serious trouble.