Distances Bridge

I spent five hours watching a baby yesterday. Part of that time, I tried to assist him in taking his prescribed nap by swaying to and fro with him in my arms (their soreness today reminds me of the adventure). I craned my neck to peer around the soft cheek, hoping to see his lashes drooping. They looked, I thought, like the fibers of my finest tipped watercolor brush. And it took them a long time to come to rest. What did those blue eyes see, I wondered, as they took in the New World of my apartment? How did his young mind interpret the shapes and colors, the textures and lights? He was so new. He seemed so fearless. And though the curse is present with every birth, it seemed its effects had not hardened in him as completely as in older things. The terrible distances of the Fall did not seem quite as great. He drowsed against my shoulder, his breathing pressed against my own. It was natural, for him, to be close.

As a child, I loved babies. I delighted in holding them and felt very proud when one fell asleep in my arms.In the absence of real children, I cuddled, clothed, and fed my dolls. The smell of a new shower curtain still invokes in me an oddly poignant twinge of tenderness--the sensation of receiving a new baby doll. But after the dolls (weeded to a few special relics) went gently into a box, I drew back from real babies, too. I was afraid--of giving them germs, of not handling them just so, of blundering.

When the mother called to ask me to care for her child, I was not happy. I had already messed up with children that week by allowed an ill-advised snowball fight between students in the after-school program, an activity which resulted in tears, mussed hair, general wildness, and finally apologies to parents. I did not want to watch anyone's dearest object on earth, I did not want the care of an immortal soul, I wanted a hole--not a grave, a mole hole. Snug, dark, alone. But the lesson from a radio program about "allowing God to write our stories" cocked it's eyebrow insinuatingly, and I finally told the mother I would watch her baby.

And so he and his mother arrived with tips for heating the bottle and changing the diaper and approaching nap time. His smile relieved me. We got on well. The first nap was delayed and short in duration,the second never came, but we smiled and played and looked into each other's eyes. He left sleepy but at peace with the world. And I think I am no longer afraid of caring for babies.

And so, distances bridge. Unwearied arms barricade me from my hole and hold my weakness against an omnipotent heartbeat.