When you are about to have a child, or have just had one it seems that peoples favourite thing to do is tell you all the things that are about to change. I won’t go into detail here the list of changes that i had been warned about because to be honest it is annoying. Even the if teller is well intentioned and accurate any statement about what to expect is irritating. Or maybe it was that everyone was telling me about all the practical things that would change and i am at my core a highly impractical person
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Tonight I went to a birthday of a good friend of mine. She is smart, charming and sweet the type of person that you sincerely want to celebrate with. Without fail celebrating her birthday usually means doing something interesting. This year’s celebration was at Cafe Deux Soleil for the youth poetry slam. Immediately upon entering i am made painfully aware that i must be 100 years old and wonder how all these 12 year olds are allowed to order alcohol. The poetry starts however and i quickly forget just how prepubescent all these rounded young faces look because their poetry is good. It is very good. It is funny it is sad, it is tragic. Like every teenager ever it is perfectly self conscious, self obsessed and self righteous.
As I am watching a funny thing happens. When i was young of course i wrote poetry. It was awful, seeing these kids tonight makes me realize how awful. In the past seeing these kids would unhinge waves of nostalgia and i would spend the night remembering my teenage years. I may even wake up mehernosh when i got home just so i would have someone to share my memories with. But tonight things are different, instead of thinking about myself and my past all i can think of is Kayan. Would he come to something like this? Nervously read a love poem obviously written about the curly haired girl at his table? Or would he be like the boy at the front table and practically explode on stage with his confidence like some sort of frat boy. Would he like the strange punk girl or would he prefer the petit girl who wrote a poem about her guitar and made me blush with the unexpected use of the f word. Suddenly for the first time i am seeing things not as some reflection of my life and experiences but as possibilities of his might be. For the first time it is not about me. It is these types of impractical unexpected things that everyone forgets to mention.
