Time and Memory

I spent a fair amount of time today thinking about, well, time. Time, and the way one's experience of time shifts around depending on what's going on in one's life at any given moment. Right now I'm obviously in sleep-deprived, parent-of-a-newborn land, and I've already written about how it feels that time is both crawling and speeding, stretching and contracting, and just generally behaving oddly. But I've also been experiencing other things that have made time feel different.

For example, this morning Josh and Isaac and I went out to Redwood City to witness the interment of my Poppa and Grandma's ashes in the niche they'd picked out. On the drive there and back (with Isaac blissfully asleep in the back seat), I spent a lot of time thinking about my grandparents, and about the time I'd spent with them as a kid, as a teenager, and as an adult. And about how I wouldn't ever get to spend any time with them again, except in my memories. Standing there under the oak trees with various friends and family members, watching the little cardboard boxes of ashes get sealed up in the marble square that was "theirs", I had this weird sort of double-vision feeling of being in both present and future, knowing that I was currently living through an experience that was also going to wind up as a memory of the past. (And now I'm blogging about it...yet another layer.)

Another example of the way that time and memory are coming up in my life right now: I just randomly reconnected with an old high school friend, the kind that you're super tight with in high school and then somehow completely lose touch with afterwards. My mom and dad ran into her in the supermarket, and she gave them her phone number to pass on to me. And surprise surprise, the stars aligned one day not long after that and I had a hand free and a few minutes of time and I actually called her. We had a brief but very interesting conversation and now tomorrow she and her son (!) are coming over here for a play date. I haven't seen her in probably 15 years at least. Just doing that brief "so what's your life been like" phone call was a total trip--sent me spinning back through time to look over my life and cull out some anecdotes that might help someone else make sense of who I'd become. Old friends (and the easy access to nostalgic memories they provide) are always a great way to help you think about the paths you've walked and the way your life has shaped up. They help shake you out of your everyday routine, remind you of what you used to do/say/think/believe/listen to/wear, and let you evaluate what's changed and why. I am really looking forward to our play date tomorrow.

One more time/memory thing: I've also been reading the baby journal I started when Eli was born, and tripping out on the similarities and differences in my own mental state back then and right now (not to mention the similarities and differences in the babies and their development). I have come so far as a parent, and yet I totally relate to the me I can still "hear" in those old pages. I'm still her--I have the same general attitudes and coping mechanisms, the same past experiences that made me who I am (was?), and really, it wasn't that long ago that I wrote those pages. And yet everything is different now, so much more life experience layered on top that has changed me and my outlook.

I'm having a hard time expressing what I mean here...maybe I need to let all this percolate beneath the surface for a few more hours/days/weeks/months/years. So let me shift from the abstract to the grounded, and offer up a few mundane details of daily life.

Over the last few days, Isaac was nursing even more frequently than usual (hence the not blogging)--sometimes every hour to hour and a half. I guess this was a growth spurt (what the La Leche League euphemistically call "frequency days"), and I tried to just go along with it. But then starting last night and continuing into today, he suddenly started going longer stretches, 3 or 4 hours at a time. I actually got some good naps in. It's been lovely, and I'm thankful, because I was starting to slip into that fear mode of "it's always going to be like this, I'm always going to be exhausted and drained, I'll never get any sleep", and all my traditional reassurances ("this too shall pass") weren't working because, as previously mentioned, time was acting all wonky anyway. Now, who knows what tomorrow will bring--more frequent nursing, less frequent nursing, sleep, no sleep--and whether we'll be any closer to a predictable routine, but it was good to get a break, nonetheless.

Also in other Isaac news, I swear he smiled at me today. Eli and I were playing with him this morning before Eli went off to school, and I swear Isaac was actually looking at both our faces and he smiled, a big, openmouthed, crinkly-eyed look of delight. It happened several times. (And it was totally parent crack, I tell ya.) I am *so* looking forward to the days (and they're not too far off) when Isaac's little face just lights up when one of his family members is nearby, when he really begins to interact with us and with his environment. That part is just sooo cool.

And in the final bit of Isaac news, I just posted pictures from Week 3, for viewing enjoyment. The albums are getting much smaller now (I think this week only has about 20 or so pictures in it). What I really need to do is get the rest of the family photos moved over to Gallery, and keep on top of all that archival work (sheesh, being the family archivist is a big job).

Ok as always, there's much more I wish I had time to ruminate and write about, but I am amazed I've been able to spend even this much time in any kind of two-handed personal pursuit, so I'm going to quit while I'm ahead and see if I can squeeze in a couple other things besides blogging before Mr. Baby wakes up. But before I do, here's today's cute kid picture (I've gotten kind of attached to posting pictures now, I admit):

^ Every week I think he gets cuter and cuter...just imagine what it'll be like next week...next month...next year...next decade...