Monday, December 12, 2011

Japan Journifications, Ear/Eye Hustles & Such

Eye Hustle

The thing about babies is that they appear to be looking inside your soul. Beneath all that slobbering and what we perceive as cooing and face grabbing, they are really divine geniuses placed here to make us wonder about our us-ness.

I recently attended a children’s Christmas party and watched an American Santa try and keep up with the cool kids. Some of them quite frankly confused that the jolly man in red request they sit upon is lap. After all…this is such an intimate act. Some parents choosing to simply take pictures standing next to Santa. Some of the children fascinated by his beard (it happened to be a man with an authentic long, long, long white beard) not fascinated with it because it was long nor white but fascinated because it covered his face. And why would a happy man in a red suit want you sit on his lap, cover his face and gently say ho-ho-ho?

The children searched for answers. At the end of the party they played a competitive game of musical chairs…this they quite enjoyed. One stand out kid in particular had a strategy to run outside of the circle and just when he intuitively felt like the song was approaching its end… BAM, he appeared out of nowhere in a seat. My kind of kid. 

Still, I couldn’t stop staring into the eyes of the baby with the big cheeks. His mother carried him like he was a bag of precious history or a key to a secret room, her hands never leaving his back…his eyes focused on my insides. Sadly because I am a semi-Japanese speaking coward, as in even when I know what to say I rarely verbalize it, I couldn’t figure out how to begin to say “Your baby is so cute and precious I want to eat him up…” and after thinking about it, it’s probably best I don’t tell a stranger I want to eat her baby. Yes I am absolutely sure that wouldn’t translate well. Thank goodness for the universal grab your heart, make cheesy smiley faces and sigh…this translates to nearly the same as I want to eat your baby because he’s so cute.

Something happened in that sign language-ey, optical, heart to heart exchange though. Not sure how to pen it. But I liked it. 


No comments:

Post a Comment