hmmn: musings from the far east(erwood)
Mark with Bolex, Santa Cruz, CA, September 11, 1994. Pentax K1000, Fuji Velvia 50.
Did this before, tripping down memory lane via my slide transparencies from yesterdays. Let’s do it again, this time with less words.
My most recent Street Photography Mailing List Salon entry (click on pic). The theme was “One for the Road.”
Honmaru, Imperial East Garden, Tokyo, May 8, 2004. Bessa-L, CV 21mm f/4, Kodak Tmax 400.
I don’t know why I thought it’d be this way, but somehow I imagined that one day our son Kaika would just wake up and be able to walk on his own two feet, as if there was an on-off switch he would flip in his dreams and then he’d wake up to a new reality. I thought that there would be a clear demarcation point, from baby to toddler, and a date to write in the baby book, “On this day, our son walked for the first time.”
Alas this is just one of many aspects of imagined parenthood that Kaika is steadily confounding, as if he’s dragging his hand along a path of dominoes and making them fall one by one. I’m getting used to it, and it’s best I am, as I suspect it will continue this way for the rest of my life.
Since around February Kaika has been slowly but steadily learning how to stand and walk on his own two feet, progressing from the proverbial baby steps, his hands clutching ours or vice-versa, to what is these days a damn near run of the house, occassionally aided by a wall or the legs of one of us, just to catch his breath now and then. Of course he falls from time to time, accompanied occassionally by wailing which seems to turn into whimpering and then to smiling much quicker than it takes his worried father’s heartbeat to slow down. But like trying to watch clock hands move, it’s simply not possible to neatly delineate when it was exactly that he started to walk.
Funny thing is, he has apparently decided to dispense with the age-old wisdom that one must learn to crawl before one can walk. To this date, he still hasn’t learned how to crawl, at least of the on your hands and knees variety. Perhaps he’s just come to the conclusion that that which can be done more quickly and efficiently is the more preferable method.
Kaika, the expanses laid out before you like the one below must look so immense and boundless. But you ain’t seen nothing yet, and there are so many more miles to wander before you sleep. And right now you think walking is the bee’s knees, but just you wait, before you know it you’ll be running, and then, before you even know what to do with all this newfound mobility, you’ll be flying.
