Bliss

Just listened to the This American Life episode, We Didn’t (first broadcast July 12, 1999) which includes an excellent rumination by Geoff Dyer on the subject of procrastination. And here I am, folding laundry when I should be on the phone to the media, But I haven’t folded and put away laundry in so long the heap in our bedroom is comical, spending the last month or two rummaging through clean clothes in hampers to the side of the bed as the heap grows.

Dyer describes how artists have children just so they will have someone to blame for their own inability to write that book, something they never would have accomplished anyway. I know I will never do that. In fact, I used to blame D. for holding me back, if it hadn’t been for D. I would have been such a success in my early to mid 20s.

And yet, it is so clear to me how Toni has encouraged me to accomplish more than I ever would have without her – and I feel I have helped her do more than she would have without me.

And the child. What will the child do? Keep me from directing, or acting, for a very long time. I will need to care for the child while mommy is at work. I don’t even consider resenting that. I think it is something I have always wanted.

Toni has made me feel experiencing life it is own work of art, from visiting museums, to watching people or listening in on their conversations, to watching plants grow and die, to listening to music to beautiful smells, to experiencing stupid roadside attractions. How could sharing that with a child be anything but bliss?