Like a web in the air

Poet Robinson Jeffers called it "divinely superfluous beauty," and my daughter, Grace, at seventeen months calls it, "Sky! Sky! Sky!"

We take a few moments in the afternoon yesterday, on the porch, after I get home from work. I take a glass of wine out with me; it's Friday, time to breathe.

Now she turns her attention to a spigot in the wall. "Open, open, open!" She insists, smiling.

Not yet, baby.

I can relate to the feeling though: the sight of an open valve carries with it a craving to turn on the faucet and see what pours out. I am just as impatient, sometimes.

Other times, I am too cautious. I doubt effortlessly, tending to wonder about the point of every word before it leaves me. Locked inside over time, I guess some grow itchy with cabin fever.

This morning I signed up for an online class in Advanced Novel Writing, which seems quite presumptuous in light of the fact that I am an absolute beginner. But it was available, and can be done at 3 am in pajamas, before work, while Grace is sleeping. It starts next week. I have never written a novel, nor even a complete chapter. I have tangles of ideas in stacks of notebooks, and I think it's time to start the messy process of unwinding some.

Grace giggles after her ball. She marvels at the ice in her sippy cup, and remarks enthusiastically at passers-by: Dog! Car! Baby! Bike! My role, for now, is to look, point with her, name, and smile.

Often, though, when I am falling asleep, I wonder what she will notice and question as she gets older. I often suspect that one thing she will ask is, What did you do?

My answers, though balanced enough, seem insufficient if they do not include an honest report about the open valves I tested as I found them. I would like to tell her that I believe life is well-spent noticing details like "the storm-dances of gulls, the barking game of seals," and prove it. I'd like to create superfluously, that she may see that not everything needs a point; it's the act of pointing that needs preservation.

I'd like to unlearn a learned habit of neglecting to remark and exclaim; of thinking that the azure that envelops our tilted heads is obviously sky, and that it has been seen before and sufficiently named.

She raises her arms above her head now, hands open wide as if to catch something falling. "Up!" she grins, "Up, up, up!"

Photo provided by alistair.pott on flickr under a Creative Commons License.