standing on tip-toes

35 degrees, the texas sun is shining, and one 19-month old (blonde hair at ends, tongue out) is learning to walk on his toes. it's thrilling apparently, this toe-walk of the truly awkward, truly tiny dancer. it's a cliche, that the child's eyes are full of wonder, that for the under-3-feet set, every tip-toe across the earth is a tap-dance worth celebrating. but it is true. and so it is in honor of that wonder -- of that very basic, childlike delight in living and breathing and throwing raisins at the window -- that i write this first blog post.

hopefully it will be more than a grocery list of the day's banalities. hopefully it won't dwell on every advancement, stumble, temper-tantrum, and finger painting masterpiece in the life of blonde "baby o". hopefully it will be more about what has to date been an awfully timid, much discussed quest for a life-less-conventional, a life-less-burdened, a life that has more to seek out than the golden career, the gold-trimmed car, and the gold-lined coffin. my baby-daddy, "papa p," laments the new American dream: the cradle-to-the-cubicle-to-the nursing home. can't we do something different? can we give "baby o" the chance to toe-dance on mountains and continents? can we demonstrate to him that we too wonder at this spinning world? will we give him empty lessons on morality and wisdom, or will we actually act out our ideals of social justice and freedom? "freedom".... will that be just some people talking? (I promise, faithful reader, that this is the first and last time i make reference to The Eagles.)

but i ramble. and my blog-- and my life-- certainly has a lofty vision, given that an hour ago i was at marshall's buying lace underwear. Meanwhile, the Egyptian people, in an unimaginably brave and unified scream for freedom, were toppling 30-years of tyranny. According to Democracy Now, they were celebrating with cartwheels in the streets of Cairo.