Maya

This is a photograph of my cousin, a girl named Maya. She is one and half years old, approximately, which is the age, it seems, when human beings begin to notice things around them in the world, begin to be interested in how things work in terms of form and symbol and function.

Maya has a some picture books she is entirely devoted to. Whenever I visit her at home, she brings me one or two to read. She crawls up into my lap and follows along, enthusiastically turning pages and pointing out the things she knows:

"Baher!"

The "H" is hard; this is the word for beach and ocean in Arabic. Maya has seen the baher in her picture books; she knows each fish and bird and Dora represented in those pages. She knows sand, too, playing almost daily in the sandbox at the playground near her house. Maya's already been swimming. Her mother takes her to mommy-baby lessons at the Y, calling the pool "baher" whenever she names it for Maya.

Maya's been to the beach before--here in SF and in Lebanon--but this past Friday, when I accompanied her and her parents to Crissy Field, Maya understood something about the beach for the first time. As we got out of the car and walked up to the trail and alongside the sand, she turned and said, "Baher!", loud and pointing. And then we tried to get her to walk on the sand, but she wouldn't have it, would rather stand between her parents, holding a hand of each and walk along the cement sidewalk, chanting the word. Then finally her dad grabbed her, lifting up into the air and pulling her against him, and I took my shoes off and we all walked towards the Pacific.

When we all sat down on the sand, Maya stayed in the of her father's lap, until he put her down next to him. She was stiff at first, but then we pulled out some plastic molds and shovels and began playing with the sand, encouraging her to join. And then her mom walked out to the water and Maya began to call out to her, who was becoming smaller and smaller, a colorful dot against the brown and blue expanse and I reached my hand out to Maya and got up and we walked towards her. At the water, Maya's mom took her hand and I walked into the edge of the surf. It was cold! Maya came towards the water, too, and when the water touched her she shrieked and then cried. She was devastated for about ten seconds.

We walked back towards her father then and sat down, beginning to play again. Maya curiously removed her shoes, pointing out the sand on her tiny baby feet. We helped her wipe some off and explained to her that it was alright, getting sand in you and on you was part of visiting the beach. "Ees Okay!" she echoed, pointing at her sullied feet. "Ees Okay!"

We spent about two hours sitting out. Maya's dad went for a jog. Her mom told me a story about coming to the same beach right before Maya was born. It was her idea and she loved the smell of the water and walking there even though it was cold and windy that day. Her own mother had been with her and mentioned a few times the possibility of her giving birth right there, at Crissy Field.

Maya began to realize that the whole beach was her sandbox and she wandered off from us in many directions, following pigeons and falling over her own feet, uncertain in the sand. She seemed like a crazy drunk. I guess she was drunk on the beach. On the way home she passed out in her car seat, her head slumped forward. I pushed it back, noticing her cheeks had gotten sun despite all the spf applied. She just slumped forward again, snoring her soft baby snore.

It's been a while since I've posted here. The weather has been lovely. I've been enjoying my new bike. And writing a bit and reading a lot. Today so far a coupla things stick out:

"A passive understanding of linguistic meaning is no understanding at all, it is only the abstract aspect of meaning." (M.M. Bakhtin (who I am officially in love with, btw), from "Discourse in the Novel")

"I beg to dicker with my silver-tongued companion, whose lips are ready to read my shining gloss. A versatile partner, conversant and well-versed in the verbal art, the dictionary is not averse to the solitary habits of the curiously wide-awake reader....In the rapid eye movement of the poet's night vision, this dictum can be decoded, like the secret acrostic of a lover's name." (Harryette Mullen, the beginning and end of "Sleeping with the Dictionary")