In which Our Hero shares a lack of pain.
My sister’s sixteen-month-old child has not yet learned that life is more pleasant when one defecates intentionally in prescribed locations. Instead, he saves time and effort (and I admire his efficiency) by pooping wherever and whenever inspiration strikes.
After completing this task, he begins to smell.
It is not a pleasant smell.
It gives one the impression that all disgust responses originate here.
To rectify (pun!) the situation, one generally places him on his back and swaps out his undergarments for fresh ones, with some cleansing wiping in the middle (pun!).
He does not enjoy being on his back.
Would you enjoy being held on your back by beings eight-plus times your size?
In response to this dissatisfaction, I’ve learned to change his undergarments while he’s standing. This satisfies the basic needs. But sometimes the environment is not conducive.
Such was the case this afternoon at the park.
We – my father and I – flopped the nugget onto his back.
His face screwed itself into a pre-wail.
I noticed something in myself: calm. Comfortable ease. I found it, then sent it his way. His pre-wail ceased. He looked at my face.
I knelt above the boy-child’s head, my face upside-down over his. He gazed at my scruffy visage; I gazed down at his soft, pudgy one. It didn’t take effort. Just a gentle internal returning-to-the-calm.
He did not find this enchanting. (For roughly four seconds during the change, he looked away.) But it was sufficient.
I am not, perhaps, more entertaining than a stubbed toe is painful.
But I can be more engaging than a sudden flop onto one’s back.
—
At clown school, the second-years play a warm-up game with a baby.
They appear on stage one by one. They make a face or a sound or some small action. The teacher plays either a baby crying or a baby laughing. They continue. The question is simple:
How long can you keep the baby laughing?
I’ve wondered for a while whether that’s the goal of clowning: reach some pre-culture, fundamental-to-all-humans level where your pleasure arrives into any audience, underneath their higher-level reasoning.
I do not yet have the skills to make this baby laugh on command. (Except via the super-secret hack of foot tickles.)
But I do have the ability to Turn On The Calm.
And that
can be
enough.
Julian Wise 