In concert

I think it's fair to say that much of my interaction with Cleo, over her first nine months, has been relatively unidirectional. By that, I mean that we rarely seem to be thinking the same thing, or interacting in true concert. Instead, we seem to act at angles to each other: I point to a bird, as we walk, and see her head turn in the opposite direction, towards a car. Or I begin reading, aloud, one of her board books, only to watch her take an extreme interest in turning the pages, quite rapidly, in reverse.

Over the last few weeks, though, the moments in which we're clearly acting together, towards some shared end, have grown much more common. I hold out the spoon, loaded with pureed peach, and she opens wide, and leans forward. Or I set up a tower of blocks, and watch as she intently crawls towards it, and demolishes it: a tiny, endearing Godzilla. Or, most magically, a good three minutes of pitch-and-catch, baby-style, yesterday. Here's a brief stretch of it:

Sure, she's still got a ways to go before she's Jake Peavy. But, heck, it's still pretty early in the spring; that arm will come around. And yet, even if she never does produce a 97-mph heater, I can't express how touched I was by the simple game, whose basic premise she seemed to grasp.

Think of a band whose recordings sell well. Obviously, their recorded music may touch their fans in powerful ways. And, certainly, the band must notice and appreciate the distant interest of the fans. But, through recording, such interest moves unidirectionally: band and fans never interact. It's only in concert, when the band's live on stage, that there's a real conversation, or exchange of energy in real time, between the two.

As silly as it sounds, I felt as we tossed the fluffy ball back and forth that we were now in concert.