| #1 She looks beautiful and I love her. "Little Marion" I say. "You're beautiful and I love you." She lets me hold her. Neither of us is frightened. But our mother doesn't like it. She tries to hurry me away. "Don't worry," I say, "I just want to tell her everything's going to be okay." But our mother is not reassured. When I get back home my children's future selves are visiting them. I don't much like it but I don't hurry them away. In particular, I let them say everything's going to be okay. #2 "I can prove it," I exclaim. "I can prove I'm big Marion." She's on the living room rug with paper, crayons, and chubby plastic scissors. And she's listening. "You do this a lot, right?" I begin. "You love to draw and cut and paste." "Right," she answers. "And as you make the things you make, you chant 'cut a scissors with a scissors', right?" She nods. "And as you're doing that it seems to you that the earth is not only flat but infinite. It divides the universe into two parts. And it's sort of a given that, although our parents are atheists and although we're atheists, there's a kind of God up there, in the upper half of the universe. And once upon a time that God liked you best so he gave you... well, you call it 'feelings'; I call it consciousness." "Go on," she says. "And you feel like a sort of Christ, a second God, having to live among all the non-Gods. And... well, it's not good because he leaves you down here. He doesn't ever come to see you and you're all alone." Is she crying? I'm not sure. But I continue, "Don't worry. Later you realize that's not the way it is. You're not all alone. I'm not all alone." We're sitting together on that rug. I pick up the scissors and scotch tape and make her a Mobius strip. Then I cut her a paper scissors so she can cut a scissors with a scissors. I take her in my arms and rock with her. We are all alone together. #3 "Everything's going to be MORE than okay," I say. "Just wait'll you see what you're going to do with your life." I'm all excited at the prospect of telling her. Our parents are there and I'm excited about telling them, too. "You get a Ph.D.," I say, "in math of all things. And you write books and they get published. You give presentations. You're on radio, TV. And you fall in love, three times -- ah! just wait'll you experience THAT. You think it's great now in the closet there at night, after the bedtime story, with the chess pieces, especially the bishop? Just wait'll you experience real adult stuff. And also -- perhaps best of all -- you have babies. You get a total of 52 months' pregnancy, 152 months' lactation, and birth -- you give birth. Just you wait, you're going to love it. You WILL love it. You DID love it." In one version Little Marion says "Huh? Well, I'll take your word for it." In another she says "And do I get to teach graduate courses? Do I get tenure? How many math papers do I publish? Also, do my books get reviewed by the New York Times?" In yet another she has fallen asleep. She has already become tired. |
