Mommy and I took her to the Foster Avenue Beach. We went for a picnic with some very nice people that we met through Open Salon, where I also publish this blog. We had a wonderful time, and Abby did very well until the end when she started to get sleepy. The wind off the lake was a little chilly, so we bundled her up in long pants, hooded jacket and socks. It never ceases to amaze me that it can be so cool in early August. This time of year is an oven where I come from.
Which reminds me of a brief but absolutely wonderful moment that I had with Abby at the lake. Holding her up so her head was next to mine, I walked over to the wall overlooking the lakeshore, and we looked out at the water. It was her first time seeing such a sight, and for a minute or so, she just gazed at it. She was quickly distracted, however, by cawing gulls that flew up and started some aerial play overhead. Now look, I'm not under any romantic illusions about the gulls, but their sounds and the way that they wheeled around each other, reminded me of my own childhood and the countless times I listened to gulls and looked out over the water. For those of you who don't know, I grew up on the Isle of Palms, a small barrier island just north of Charleston, South Carolina.
The breeze, the gulls, the water, and my little girl with that wistful-seeming look on her face - you know the one - when the wind in your face makes your eyes water a little. You look like you're on the verge of tears (you're not really), but you just can't look away. She was so obviously delighted by the sights and sounds. She turned and gave me a big smile. Then the moment was past.
It was brief, but it had great depth for me. Abby is a brand new subject, an independent and irreducible point of view from which the world is being observed. Think about that for a second. With apologies to Thomas Nagel, there is a spectaculary astounding fact that is so fundamental to us that it often goes unnoticed. In some sense, we are all just points of view from which the world is witnessed. We experience things from different vantage points, and we realize that there are many other such vantage points. I observe the world from this vantage point, and you from that one. There is no particular reason why I am this point of view, and you are that point of view. These facts about us seem completely arbitrary, but they are cruelly inescapable. We can never switch and never really share our vantage points. We can look at the same things, but we cannot see these things through each other's eyes. All we have are those fleeting instances when we are confronted by great beauty or horror, in which we feel as if we are sharing a vantage point. Even if these connections are ultimately illusory, most of us, I imagine, count these brief moments as among the most cherished in our lives.
Now I realize that I am reading a lot into her reaction and that this post is more about me than about Abby, but my mind lit up as I watched her see the water and notice the gulls for the first time. I shared a moment of great beauty with her. It will be the first of many. She won't remember it, of course, but I will never forget it.
God, I love this kid.
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