Seed Capital
Tags: Newborn, Fatherhood

May 29th 2019, 7:30 am Melbourne, this was not a regular hump day. It’s the day I found out I was going to be a dad! Life, just wasn’t going to be the same anymore. A lot has been said by the more experienced on becoming parents, so I won’t add to it. Let’s just say it’s a strange feeling. Strange because it gives you goosebumps and in the same second augments your anxiety levels. Months passed by but the feeling stayed. One might wonder as a man and co-party to this enigma was I just responsible for a seed? Nine months later on a beautiful Aussie summer afternoon I stopped wondering as I held her in my arms. For the first time the selfish, narcissist in me had lost to this wonderful miracle. I was now trying to take the thoughts of another human being into a place where I could encompass my own thoughts, and allow both thoughts to co-exist inside my head simultaneously. Sounds complex isn’t it? It is actually very simple because I guess what is habitual, is for us to not draw attention to the fact that we’re experiencing a moment of intimacy, but I don’t think that custom needs to be stood by. At least I did not, I wanted to sing, cry, jump, hug all at the same time. I ended up broadcasting her pictures to all and sundry.

This was me, my wife on the other hand had already progressed three steps forward. Not sufficient that she had endured nine months of pregnancy, she was now dealing with a newborn and all its peripherals so seamlessly that it made me wonder once again what really was my role. Many new dads are confused on what they need to do post the euphoria. What are they really supposed to do, be supportive? Yes sure, can someone explain how? stay awake? Easy, piece of cake, do and say the right things? Yes, never had a problem!

In case you are wondering, much to my better half’s consternation I did not get any of the above right. I used to always joke that for every man there is born a woman who will be his surrogate mother, his nemesis and everything else in between. Well I can tell you I felt differently when I held her, maybe things might change when she is older.

My experience of this moment, somewhere in the depths of being married, was perfectly dual, as I understood my wife, I also learned to understand my daughter. I knew, with lucid certainty, when she would smile, what made her feel hurt, what would make her feel alive, or where her sensitivities or affection might lie. To view the world through the eyes of my consort was to also see it through the eyes of my daughter, except, perhaps, with lenses tinted in different shades. What had merged between my wife and my daughter, I began to realise, was not just behaviour and personality but its tendency, the very first derivative, to use a mathematical term. In calculus, the first derivative of a point is not its position in space, but its proclivity to change its position; not where an object is, but how it moves in space and time. This shared quality, inscrutable to some, and yet conspicuous was the lasting connection between these two wonderful women in my life. Both strong women undeniably shared the first derivative of identity.

So, what really is fatherhood, is it just seed capital? For me it’s been more like digging a well, not climbing a mountain. I tend to think of it as climbing a mountain, but spiritually, I think it’s more comparable to digging a well. A mountain naturally assumes that you speculate that there is a mountain, and that there are slants and snoozing spots that you can see. But actually, I don’t think that one can see any of that stuff. It only feels like climbing a mountain in hindsight, when you can look back and see what you’ve done. But when you’re doing it, you have no idea where you’re going and what’s going to come. That’s why it feels like you are indeed digging a well, which fills with water, that one desires to be sweet and not salty. Doing it means having a gap where you sit in seclusion for long periods of time, waiting for stuff to happen.

As I look into my little one’s eyes, I start role playing where she is a little older and asks me to tell her a story, so I make something up, on demand. She utters, “Papa tell me a story about any animal, maybe a dog, a cat, a mouse or a fish!” Or she might say, “Tell me a story about a story.” Or, “Tell me a story about anybody, nobody.” It’s incredible. The way a child approaches storytelling, I think, is innately self-referential. She is not bound by any restrictions. We live in a world where formal experimentation and trial is something willed. Actually, it’s the intrinsic state of storytelling. Shrinking inside a contrived form is what’s artificial. The natural order is to just let it rip, by not giving up on your own fact over someone else’s fiction.