Once in a while that mirror will show you something you like. When that happens, admire yourself until you blush. Gush over it - it’s truly a beautiful thing when you see something in yourself that you like...
It was when she started to open her eyes wider, that I wanted to see what she saw. It took a couple of weeks after her birth, but when it started happening - when she became more awake in between her sleeps - I could see the colour of curiosity amongst the browns of her iris and I yearned for that same curiosity.
As an adult, I think we can become closed off to new experiences, simply because our responsibilities dictate that we have a certain routine. We have to fulfill duties that eat away of the hours of the day - stress and worry can cause our body fatigue - and days become weeks that make months feel like minutes.
If you are one of those that have achieved a balance in your life that allows for hobbies and socializing, you have to admit that sometimes, even those feel a bit habitual. We could swan dive into a deep pool of conversation that blames society, social media and capitalism as to why we are programmed to feel we are never achieving enough, but I feel it is there that I would drown.
Instead, I am going to bring it back to what it felt like to become a Father and to see the curiosity of a newborn. In her wakeful states, I would peer into her eyes and imagine all of the neurons forming, forging and fusing together; lightning forks of information flashing across her brain. There was excitement, fear, joy and confusion all forming like a bright burning star in an endless Universe, seconds away from exploding.
All around her, life unfolded at such velocity that it was easy to see why at any moment she would burst out crying, pinned down by the sheer weight of the anxiety - completely overwhelmed. I recall too many times we had to use every technique in the book to calm her down because every one of her senses had been pushed to the limit. We learnt very early on that her curiosity opened her up to the world in a way that would allow it to flood in, to almost drown her.
But with every moment of fear there were equal parts of joy. Joy so powerful that it lifted me off the ground. And there was simplicity in the joy she felt in those early months. For example, from the way she would place the cube piece into the correct square space - how her face lit up as it fell into the plastic bucket, the sense of achievement strewn across her eyes. A squeal and a giggle would accompany the act and those sounds would warm my heart.
She would reach out to do it again and I would be there to help her, to watch her fulfill a seemingly simple task in a joyous way. We would move on to the next thing, like batting a balloon or popping bubbles or dancing to a nursery rhyme and to see her indulge in these acts to her fullest would be a thing of beauty.
These milestones grew in their capacity and became more complex and as a result, the joy she felt grew as well. So she became hungry to interact with her environment and we became aware to fill her environment with the tools for learning. And more importantly, to fill it with play. It was during acts of play that I enjoyed myself the most, where I really saw myself as a good Father. I could disappear into her world and not worry about what awaits in mine. And, I had at my fingertips the instruments to facilitate her curiosity and to foster her joy, so many toys that I could put together in ways that would make her smile and laugh.
Playtime became a time where magic would exist. Playtime would have no rules and no judgement. I could pull a silly face, wear a silly outfit, speak in a silly voice, do a silly dance and not concern myself with whether I was behaving like an adult. Adulthood can wait, I would think to myself.
It’s not about avoiding the adult responsibilities that I have. It’s about freezing time. Those responsibilities will still be there, waiting, suspended high above in a anti-gravity type of way, but my child’s youth will not be. So it’s about putting everything on hold so that I can play with her, watch her curiosity and feel her joy.
Now, I love playing with her. I love being in her world and enjoying that magical space between reality and fiction, one that can only exist within a child’s mind. I love the innocence of the silly things we do, like pretending to be monsters chasing each other, or crawling around on all fours like puppies being naughty, or talking about who our favourite Paw Patrol character is, or babbling to each other in a made up language.
Her curious mind has changed my perceptions of the world because I see it as she does, stripped away of adult hardships and in its most simplistic form. From this view, the beauty of things are blinding. See a rainbow through a child’s eyes, touch a flowing, crystal clear river through a child’s fingertips, smell the stems of a lavender plant through a child’s nose, hear the sound of the morning birds soaring from tree to tree through a child’s ears. From this view, the beauty of things are blinding.
Play the way they do, see things the way they do and find wonder in the world again.
