12,747. RUDIMENTS, pt. 1,031

RUDIMENTS, pt. 1031

(dual moments in an old, single sun)

There's never any moment like

one's first realization that what

you first thought was, wasn't 

really. It can be likened to a

film over a baby's eyes. When

I was young boy, maybe 8 or 9,

just about the time of the train 

wreck, my mother started

having other kids. Before that

it had just been me and my

sister, who was maybe 15

months younger than me. Still

is, actually (that's a joke, thrown

in for comic relief because I

don't want you to think I'm

going all dramatic now). So

new little babies began showing 

up when she and I were already

8 and 7. New vistas, for sure. 

I really didn't pay that much 

attention to it, being train-wrecked

and all at first  -  which kind of

had me preoccupied some. One

of the oddest things I remember

was being told of how little

infants grow. One was about

how to hold them  -  the neck

always had to be supported

because, early on, the infant

had no real control over its own

rigidity and could or would, if

not supported by a hand behind

the neck while being held, flop

back, with head or neck, and

get hurt. Well, sort of made

sense, I guessed, in a basic,

diagrammatic, way. So I always

tended to that, even though I

really didn't handle any of them

much anyway. (There were three

more infants in a quick succession,

of like 1958-1962, I think). By

then I was gone anyway; seminary

school stuff. '62, I mean. Another

thing, and this I was able to

sort-of feel, because it was a

real thing and tangible enough.

The skull, apparently, at birth,

isn't fully complete; at the

top of the skull (top-high

back of the head) it's sort of still

soft, not yet having 'hardened'

into real skull. As they put it, 

it hadn't, the skull, 'stitched

itself' closed yet. I never knew

what that was all about, nor where

it all led. I guessed brain matter

behind there, but I couldn't tell.

I even for a while thought it

was maybe still not closed up

because signals were still coming 

in, for the kid, that had to be

absorbed and couldn't be fully

finalized until maybe the new

kid's situation and thought

environment was known. I

figured it was just more of the

weird weirdnesses of life and

matter. The third one was

more curious to me  - it was

about vision and seeing. I

was told, or as it was explained

to me, these infants didn't 'see'

at first, their eyes were covered

over with a film, some opacity

that went away after some weeks,

8 or 20, I forget. Until that time,

the kid just sees the basic shapes

and forms, in a shadowy fashion,

and only later does true 'visual'

input begin. That too was weird;

I figured nothing could really

be proven one or or another at

the level we were at, so I went

along. Eventually I did start

seeing how baby-eyeballs began

noting and following things.

Movement and shapes. It all

seemed so primitive and

evolutionary to me  -  like

why then was 'hearing' OK 

from  day one? To better hear

predators? What's a kid gong

to do about a predator? Might

as well see them. What was the

use of 'gradual' sight if all sight

wasn't the same? It was pretty

baffling to me. When an infant

starts wailing, whether it sees

or not, it pretty much gives its

location away to any lion, tiger 

or bear out prowling for some

young loin of infant.

-

So, I kept getting these sisters,

and a brother, with soft heads,

who couldn't see, and who kept

wanting to die from whiplash.

That was a tall order; it's no

wonder I left home. It's all

real funny now  -  in today's

world kids are smothered in

safety  -  harnesses, jackets,

helmets, and the rest. Back 

then, these kids, even the 

newest of them with the

unfinished skulls, wobbly 

necks, eyes that didn't yet

function, they all, everywhere,

just got slam-dunked into the car,

front seat or back, and either

with Mommy, or just let 

loose, to ride down the

highway at 58mph in the

huffing and chugging old

'55 DeSoto or whatever, while

crazy, old, speedy Dad drove.

(What really gets my goat 

is the edict that they must be

rear-facing now, in a kid's seat

too. Strapped. What freaking

kill-joy Nazi-in-training

came up with that bullshit?

How's a kid supposed to start

learning that it's going 'forward'

by seeing everything receding

all the time  -  if those new

baby eyes are working. What's

the use of eyes then and how weird

do things really get? That's the

same set of eyes that sees

everything upside-down until

the optic-nerve corrects it? Maybe

we all end up where we started 

out because we only think we're

going forward when actually

we're closing the circle backward,

and get it done, and then we 

die; babbling like a baby again

anyway, and needing diapers

as well. Something about all

this life always did scare the

hell out of me.

-

Being a kid is some crazy stuff;

things fall between definitions

as you've not yet put claim to

all the items about life that do

later, somehow, just  fall into 

place. I suppose too that after

a while the newness of things

all wears off and everything

around you gets to be 'your' 

normal. Think of that for all

the levels of life : probably the

poor ghetto kid, in misery and

deprivation, doesn't much see 

it as that at all. It's his or her

'normal,' bad as it may be, and

that's just how things are. You

build everything else from that

foundation. If you're dead-poor

and your home life is misery, dad

beats mom, and then you, and

all the rest, you just hope all

that improves as you make your

way along. But that's the way

you see everything after that.

Same with rich kids, medium

kids, blind kids, handicapped,

etc. You land your feet down,

where you are, and you go from

their. All those slick-backed

do-gooders and the gompers 

who always claim they feel 

your pain and want to help 

and the rest, they too are all 

full of it. Their own soft-heads

probably never healed up, and

their eyes, I betcha' still have

that film of gauzy nothing.

Spineless? You tell me.

-

One last thing: As a kid, maybe

5 or 6, I remember my mother

had a 'miscarriage.' She was

in the hospital a few days, and

came home and stayed in the

bedroom for a few more, all

quiet and mournful and medical 
and sad. I had no clue what was
going  on except, when told what 

had happened, my crazy-loon

kid-brain immediately figured

the missing baby must have

been a girl. Otherwise wouldn't

they be saying 'mrcarriage?'