Beautiful is temporary

The world is open to him. He laughs, he jumps, he makes unintelligible noises, he is applauded, wherever he is, whatever he's doing, whomever is watching. It's an amazing thing to witness. Every age, every color, they just want to stop and take him in. Does this happen with all children? I only have one, so I have nothing to compare it to.

He demands that you acknowledge him. "Hi', hi, hi," he'll keep saying it until you respond, lately he's added a miss America hand wave to his greeting. It's unbelievably adorable. I love the back handed compliments we get - "He looks just like both of you, but he's beautiful."

Our friend Nadine asks us if we know how beautiful he is? I don't think about it, until somebody else mentions it. I think about other things, like -
is he eating enough,
is he eating too much,
when will the rest of his teeth come in,
will they come in straight,
how young is too young to get braces,
is he learning enough,
is he playing enough,
do I play with him enough,
shouldn't he learn to play alone,
do we read to him enough,
should he be able to count by now,
should he be in preschool like some of his other friends,
he seems smart,
but how smart,
what are the other smarter kids doing at his age,
how can I make him smarter without turning him into a geek,
but a geek owns Microsoft,
so shouldn't that be OK.

Mostly I want him to be treated the way he's treated right now, every day for the rest of his life. But that's just not a realistic thought. He'll change, of course he'll change, but say by some miracle, he remains as open and as loving and as accepting as he is right now, how do I protect him from the way the world will respond to him. It'll be difficult enough to be 16, and smelly and awkward. Or 22 and less smelly, totally unsure of what you want to do with your life but positive that you know the answers to everything. It's a hard time for everyone, black white boy or girl. But if you're fair skinned, people don't cower when you get into an elevator, they don't fear that you'll rob them or violate them or marry their daughter.

It's something you learn to live with, I live with it every day. I get mad at myself sometimes, because I think I've overcompensated, I'm too accommodating, too willing to make people feel at ease. I try too hard to be the exception to what we've all been told is the rule. But If I get into an elevator and make small talk and make every effort to let this person know that they are in no danger, will their attitude change a little or will she consider herself lucky because she turned her rings around in time.

We've been taught to fear. Roz and I always say we live in the age of fear and consumption. Be fearful of the terrorists, they can come and kill you at any moment, but in the meantime go shopping. When the terrorist strike, we have to prove to them they haven't won, so - go see Spamalot. Many of the people who ran to the suburbs out of fear are running back to the cities. Why? Cause there's land to be bought. People will move to the depths of hell for cheap rent and an exposed brick wall. I don't want to pass this on to my kid, how do I teach him to not let the world define who he is? I have a little time before I have to start dealing with that - or do I? He's not even 2 years old yet.

Right now, he's beautiful.