Think about it: for nearly six months now, everywhere that Cleo has been is somewhere she's been taken. That is, instead of actively going somewhere (for Cleo can't even crawl, not yet), she is always somewhere she's been carried, rolled, or driven. And, generally speaking, that process doesn't involve any active consent. Sure, once or twice I've steered away from a destination if she seems especially upset by it (usually her bedroom, at non-nap times; once a lovely park, for reasons that lay, inaccessible, buried in the depths of a 4-month-old brain). But, on the whole, she simply goes with the flow. Or, more specifically, with her two parents.
Which puts, it seems to me, a certain amount of pressure on us. It's something like the eternal predicament of the tour guide: we don't want to wear our charges out, but we also don't want them going home and then having to answer the relatives' disbelieving questions: "What, you didn't went to London and didn't know about the Soane Museum? You traveled to Slovakia and never made it to the painted wooden houses of Cicmany? Your guide didn't know about the juice bars of Aleppo? But they make the best smoothies in all of Syria," they'll say, and our clients will hang their heads. Or, in Cleo's case, will tug in a vaguely disconsolate way at her right ear.
But, at this point, another, broader analogy suggests itself. The other night, in a brief moment of what might be called reverie (or, less generously, wool-gathering), I began to think that the way in which we experience music, over the course of our lives, is something like the way in which Cleo has experienced the world. That is, it's a largely passive process. We turn on the radio, and hear a piece by Brahms, or - if we're 12 and we're really lucky - by Cinderella, or Ratt. A friend lends us a CD by Natalie Merchant, thinking that we'll like it. Or maybe a jazz act comes to town: we can choose whether or not to go, but we're still largely at the mercy of their tour itinerary. If they hadn't come to the mid-Atlantic, we might never have seen them.
Obviously, as our tastes mature, we can do some active searching. We might, if we're in a Nick Hornby novel, wander into a Camden record store and ask for suggestions that are similar to the music we like (but we'll likely, if we're in a Hornby novel, be mocked, or even thrown out of the store). Or we might, in recent years, visit one of several online sites designed to point us to work in genres we enjoy.
But even these processes, are - aren't they? - largely contingent ones. We depend on the advice of others, or on increasingly nuanced marketing techniques. And, all the while, even as we're led to various musical monuments, we may get an occasional random glance of something greater. I still remember sitting in a the Daily Cafe in New Haven in 1997 and hearing Dead Can Dance on the stereo. I still remember coming across the music of Thievery Corporation while searching for music for our wedding reception, in 2006. These were deeply powerful moments of discovery for me, and they were totally unplanned. (Or at least mostly unplanned: a small part of me always sensed that hanging out at the Daily might make me cooler. But I sat in the front, away from the really cool smokers in the back...).
But, at this point, another, broader analogy suggests itself. The other night, in a brief moment of what might be called reverie (or, less generously, wool-gathering), I began to think that the way in which we experience music, over the course of our lives, is something like the way in which Cleo has experienced the world. That is, it's a largely passive process. We turn on the radio, and hear a piece by Brahms, or - if we're 12 and we're really lucky - by Cinderella, or Ratt. A friend lends us a CD by Natalie Merchant, thinking that we'll like it. Or maybe a jazz act comes to town: we can choose whether or not to go, but we're still largely at the mercy of their tour itinerary. If they hadn't come to the mid-Atlantic, we might never have seen them.
Obviously, as our tastes mature, we can do some active searching. We might, if we're in a Nick Hornby novel, wander into a Camden record store and ask for suggestions that are similar to the music we like (but we'll likely, if we're in a Hornby novel, be mocked, or even thrown out of the store). Or we might, in recent years, visit one of several online sites designed to point us to work in genres we enjoy.
But even these processes, are - aren't they? - largely contingent ones. We depend on the advice of others, or on increasingly nuanced marketing techniques. And, all the while, even as we're led to various musical monuments, we may get an occasional random glance of something greater. I still remember sitting in a the Daily Cafe in New Haven in 1997 and hearing Dead Can Dance on the stereo. I still remember coming across the music of Thievery Corporation while searching for music for our wedding reception, in 2006. These were deeply powerful moments of discovery for me, and they were totally unplanned. (Or at least mostly unplanned: a small part of me always sensed that hanging out at the Daily might make me cooler. But I sat in the front, away from the really cool smokers in the back...).
So: does Cleo have comparable moments? Maybe, although it's really hard to tell. Sometimes she grabs at a leaf, or simply rides in contemplative silence, or falls asleep. I take these as signs that she's in, at least temporarily, the right place. But there must be moments, too, when she senses that there's still more out there. And perhaps wonders if her guide can get her there.
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