Currents

What if we thought of more of the world as rivers, as constant flowing currents into which we can temporarily dip a hand, or wander, weightless?

Today as I was driving north through the city, windows open, I was humming a tune I'd heard while at the gym, and turned on the radio. Saturday afternoon opera. A moment later, as I pulled up to a light adjacent to the Hopkins campus, the amplified sounds of a college band spilled into the car. A minute, or less, and three separate melodies, or musical events, washed over me. And then, as I'd listened to one on an IPod, and another on a radio, and figured that the band could more or less play the third tune on demand, I began to think of each as a perpetual song, always extant in some Platonic form, needing only the flip of a switch to bring it to life. Turn the radio on, and enter the current.

Later in the day L. and I took a clapping Cleo to a large party, thrown by two friends celebrating recent born days. Given our demographic, and that of our friends, it was hardly surprising that we were soon surrounded by a bevy of other babies, as well. A tiny two-month-old slept in a car seat, in the corner. A five-month-old sat upright, and occasionally toppled over into a resolutely horizontal position. And a graceful year-old wandered patiently through the crowd of adult limbs.

Tune in, tune in: like separate songs, each baby had his or her own melody. This one could do little but lie; this one could look about; this one could stand, with assistance. It was as though, in the space of a single room, we could choose a precise age, and explore all of its limitations and possibilities. In short: baby radio. Each station distinct; each station constantly on view, in some place, to some observer.