Trading places

There's a nicely written piece by Siva Vaidhyanathan in the current Bookforum in which she thinks at some length about the place of graduate school in modern American life, and about the notion of an academic calling. Along the way, she remembers a moment when she was a student at the University of Texas, and a lecturer asked if the students knew any Rodgers and Hammerstein songs. She raised her hand, and when she was called on, broke into song - only to listen to the professor sing, in turn, the next couplet. As she remembers it, her classmates were bemused, or even embarrassed, at this impromptu display of nerdy affection for Broadway. But for Vaidhyanathan, it was a critical moment: indeed, as she puts it, "That's when I first began to recognize my calling as a scholar of the humanities." The student saw the professor become, momentarily, a peer - and although the two were divided by age and station, she recognized that she could, in time, occupy his place. And so she did.

Yesterday, on a radiant spring day, Cleo and I spent an hour at Meadowood park, trying out the once-familiar swings and ranging over the playground equipment. We hadn't been there in months, and so the visit put me in a naturally nostalgic mood; I remembered trying to kick some field goals there at Thanksgiving, with L. and Uncle Mike, and I remembered a trip there with Grandma, Grandpa, and Cleo on a cold fall day several years ago. But I also remembered one of my first visits to the park: it was probably 2010, when Cleo was around 1, and I recall doting on her as she sat, almost inert, in a bucket swing. I chatted; I might have dangled my keys; I think I gently pinched her toes. Anything, in short, to entertain her, and myself. And I remember, too, that we were joined by an older man, likely a grandfather, who pushed his 4-year-old daughter in relative silence. His girl was happy in the mere act, and needed no distraction. And so he simply pushed, and made occasional conversation with me, and watched as I acted like a deranged ape before my toddler.

Well, yesterday we were the 4-year-old, and we were surrounded by babies. And, sure enough, the moms who accompanied their kids were intensely active, chattering with their children, attending to their jackets, and constantly making sure that they were engaged. By contrast, I had little to do once I got Cleo moving; as soon as she was swinging, she broke into song, and simply enjoyed the day. So I pushed, and stood, and struck up a couple of informal conversations with the other parents, when they weren't consumed with their little ones.

In short, I had become the figure I'd met three or four years ago. And Cleo, once a baby, had become the relatively older foil to the babies who rocked in their swings to her right. None of this, of course, is a revelation. Time passes; we grow into new roles. But, still: it can be powerful to sense that one has a calling, or at least a direction. Whether you sing show tunes or Disney numbers along the way, you evolve - and, as you do, you get a chance to experience from the inside what you once only saw from the outside.