Over the past week, in between the occasional nonsense syllables, the bewitching smiles, and the jarring thumb-sucking bouts that violate pretty much every basic code of decency, Cleo's been throwing out gestures that seem to be attempts to communicate something. A wrist rubbed rapidly across an eye; the tongue, extended; a little arm, swiping at the bottle with which I'm feeding her: it's increasingly clear that there's another citizen in the house, trying to convey her needs, desires and frustrations with some specificity.
We can read some of her signs, of course: the swipe, for instance, pretty clearly means that she's eaten enough. And the specific significance of most of her cries is now recognizable: a wobbling moan implies exhaustion, while a breathless cry signifies hunger. But in some cases, I still feel like I'm at sea: a translator who doesn't know a particular idiom, or a diviner who encounters an unprecedented pattern in the auspices.
Cleo shares her name with the muse of history, and muses, of course, also speak from the far side of familiarity. Poking around, I found a couple of interesting books on musical composition. Ann McCutchan's The Muse that Sings, for example, offers interviews with 25 recent composers on the compositional process. Unsurprisingly, these 20th-century artists speak less frequently of muses than, say, their Neoclassical colleagues might have, but the idea's still occasionally in play. Shulamit Ran, for instance, notes that "I think there is a muse, actually, but you have to make it come visit you - you have to find a way to invite it, and then find a way to work with it."
Well, we've had no problem getting Cleo to visit us: pretty much every day, in fact, we realize all over again that we're bound to spend every day for the next few years with this little gal. But it's in finding a way to work with her that the challenge lies. And yet, it's clear that the rewards for close attention might be considerable. In his Music and Imagination, Aaron Copland refuses to use the term muse in analyzing the creative process, but he does allow that "One half of the personality emotes and dictates while the other half listens and notates."
We're trying our best, Cleo, to listen and notate. Feel free to keep on dictating, and let's see where it leads.
We can read some of her signs, of course: the swipe, for instance, pretty clearly means that she's eaten enough. And the specific significance of most of her cries is now recognizable: a wobbling moan implies exhaustion, while a breathless cry signifies hunger. But in some cases, I still feel like I'm at sea: a translator who doesn't know a particular idiom, or a diviner who encounters an unprecedented pattern in the auspices.
Cleo shares her name with the muse of history, and muses, of course, also speak from the far side of familiarity. Poking around, I found a couple of interesting books on musical composition. Ann McCutchan's The Muse that Sings, for example, offers interviews with 25 recent composers on the compositional process. Unsurprisingly, these 20th-century artists speak less frequently of muses than, say, their Neoclassical colleagues might have, but the idea's still occasionally in play. Shulamit Ran, for instance, notes that "I think there is a muse, actually, but you have to make it come visit you - you have to find a way to invite it, and then find a way to work with it."
Well, we've had no problem getting Cleo to visit us: pretty much every day, in fact, we realize all over again that we're bound to spend every day for the next few years with this little gal. But it's in finding a way to work with her that the challenge lies. And yet, it's clear that the rewards for close attention might be considerable. In his Music and Imagination, Aaron Copland refuses to use the term muse in analyzing the creative process, but he does allow that "One half of the personality emotes and dictates while the other half listens and notates."
We're trying our best, Cleo, to listen and notate. Feel free to keep on dictating, and let's see where it leads.
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