I read a comment years ago somewhere or other, somewhere I haven't been able to find again, by somebody's son who happened to be Jewish - that's all I remember about him - that Jewish sons and mothers had weird tension with each other and existence because of the possibility that the son could be the Messiah and the mum could be, I guess, Messiah's Mum. Which must be a helluva letdown every time the son hasn't been the Messiah.
Anyways, that's interesting to me because as far as comparisons to the Messiah go, it's mostly the Catholic mums I know holding their babies who go in hard for Madonna and Child archetype stuff. I guess we don't have tension over how our sons might be the Messiah so much as about a thousand years of expensive, beautiful and ubiquitous iconography forcing us to look at ourselves that way. I certainly thought about it a lot when Godzilla was a baby. All those lovely sleepy hot subtropical afternoons, holding him and nursing and watching David Attenborough documentaries; a fat calm little baby with a steady and warm blessing sort of gaze, and me able to shower occasionally. It was positively Michaelangeloesque.
Well, I guess there's a good reason that God made Jesus the oldest, because fuck me if there's been a single Michaelangeloesque moment since the Monkey King was born. Not once have I felt like I was channeling the Madonna. And not once has the Monkey King seemed Jesus-y. Not ONE TIME.
And that's not only because the house is now a zoo and Jesus is more manger-y. It's also because as gorgeous as the Monkey King is - and he is actually really, objectively, a crazy gorgeous baby - he would be a fucking terrible model for someone looking to paint a nativity scene. The second those eyes are open, he is ALL MONKEY KING. He sings, he dances, he tries to talk, he follows everybody with those eyes, seeking contact; he mimes chewing when we sit down to eat. When he was a month old or so, I woke up in the middle of the night and looked at him; he was glaring at me with a perfect crescent frown on his perfect little face, and as I looked into his eyes, the frown drained away and his eyes gently closed.
There is no time for the sort of calm, universal objectivity of blessing. He is . . . too much of a monkey. Not too much of a monkey for me . . . but too much of a monkey to accord with all those calm, blessing sorts of archetypes.
Of course Godzilla played and made eye contact too - he wasn't a sleepy baby - but this new kid is not quite three months, and he's already a kid. Not a baby. It's like he's just skipped that. I've had sleepy imaginings of him pulling a Hercules and strangling serpents if they venture too close to his bed.
Anyways, that's interesting to me because as far as comparisons to the Messiah go, it's mostly the Catholic mums I know holding their babies who go in hard for Madonna and Child archetype stuff. I guess we don't have tension over how our sons might be the Messiah so much as about a thousand years of expensive, beautiful and ubiquitous iconography forcing us to look at ourselves that way. I certainly thought about it a lot when Godzilla was a baby. All those lovely sleepy hot subtropical afternoons, holding him and nursing and watching David Attenborough documentaries; a fat calm little baby with a steady and warm blessing sort of gaze, and me able to shower occasionally. It was positively Michaelangeloesque.
Well, I guess there's a good reason that God made Jesus the oldest, because fuck me if there's been a single Michaelangeloesque moment since the Monkey King was born. Not once have I felt like I was channeling the Madonna. And not once has the Monkey King seemed Jesus-y. Not ONE TIME.
And that's not only because the house is now a zoo and Jesus is more manger-y. It's also because as gorgeous as the Monkey King is - and he is actually really, objectively, a crazy gorgeous baby - he would be a fucking terrible model for someone looking to paint a nativity scene. The second those eyes are open, he is ALL MONKEY KING. He sings, he dances, he tries to talk, he follows everybody with those eyes, seeking contact; he mimes chewing when we sit down to eat. When he was a month old or so, I woke up in the middle of the night and looked at him; he was glaring at me with a perfect crescent frown on his perfect little face, and as I looked into his eyes, the frown drained away and his eyes gently closed.
There is no time for the sort of calm, universal objectivity of blessing. He is . . . too much of a monkey. Not too much of a monkey for me . . . but too much of a monkey to accord with all those calm, blessing sorts of archetypes.
Of course Godzilla played and made eye contact too - he wasn't a sleepy baby - but this new kid is not quite three months, and he's already a kid. Not a baby. It's like he's just skipped that. I've had sleepy imaginings of him pulling a Hercules and strangling serpents if they venture too close to his bed.
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Being a fucked-up christened-in-the-wee-Free-Church-of-Scotland Presbyterian-tainted atheist child of the sectarian west of Scotland I was fascinated by those bovinely and passively vacuous portraits of Mary - and those chunky cherubic baby-cheeses with their little pinkie-finger penises.
I felt a real contentment when I breastfed. A 'what the fuck' mindlessness. Maybe that was what I saw in the Mary pictures.
I've been amazed by how different my kids have all been - right from the start. Different and absolutely amazing and consuming. You're reminding me of that - the fact that we expect them to be broadly similar and to behave in the same ways - and a tickled and amazed afresh when they have their own wee personalities right from the start.
You lucky woman. To be at the start of a new life. It's beautiful.
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