We’re skin to skin all summer, the heat making clothing stupid. His skin is soft like the way clouds look, and familiar as the inside of your forearm. We protect his body from the sun, but mine gets darker as the summer deepens. Buttered toast holds pale cotton candy. His eyes are just like the blueberries we eat so many of in July.
It came as something of a shock to me that I’m raising someone who will probably move through the world as a white man. I was supposed to have a girl, first of all, and second of all, I just didn’t really think about it. I think the anticipation of being a parent is wrapped up in some idea that you will be raising yourself (whether your childhood was good or bad, you always want the chance for a redo). It’s dangerous, though, to become enraptured by repetition. Everything is different from the moment they are a separate body from you. The world is different as well as the vehicle for navigating it. He’s only a baby, but he’s not a blank canvas. He already has history written all over his skin.
We want our children to be entirely our own creations, but skin is porous and the world leaks through. Of the two things I think every child should be taught — confidence and interdependence — the world also teaches some portion of based on how it sees you. Traditionally, it teaches confidence to young boys — confidence to the point of arrogance — and cooperation, harmony, and subordination to girls. Because so much learning comes from the outside, I feel responsible for teaching the balance. You can be whoever you want to, but not at the expense of other people. You’re capable of doing anything yourself, but you also need friends, partners, neighbors. To love other people is to fight what hurts them as if it hurts you.
Skin is where we negotiate how we understand ourselves with how the world perceives us. It can be a battlefield; my mother has never felt comfortable in her own skin. What will it be like for Miro to walk around in his? What is the nature of the universe it will contain? Who will he feel kinship with, and how will he think about the ancestry that runs through his blood, just under the surface?
Everyone says he looks like Anthony, and I can’t help but feel a tiny bit deflated each time. I’ve never liked the claim of ownership implicit in Whose nose whose mouth whose fingers but I search for my mother and my grandmother in the curve of his eyes. I guess I want a piece of the lineage pie after all. I try to remind myself that he was never really me, even when he was in me, but that means he can be someone new.
What I’m Cooking
Tahini-tigernut cookies, with optional fillings (gf, dairy-free)
A dough wrapped around a filling is also a kind of skin. In anticipation of Filled Bread Party on Oct 2nd, I’m featuring all filled baked goods in my Friday recipes this month. The first one is these tahini tigernut cookies (you could also use almond flour) with pieces of chocolate or chopped Medjool dates at the center. They’re soft and rich and decadent and unusual and I strongly urge you to give them a try ;)
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so well said!