Neil Sattin.com

Toni, Dash, and I just returned from our trip to New York City, where we visited with friends, shopped a little, and saw the sights.  I had only been to NYC twice before (and neither time for very long); however, Toni used to live there, and I was really looking forward to seeing the city through her eyes - as well as watching Dash take it all in for the first time.  This was also our first vacation together as a family, and all of us were in need, I think, of some time away from our “normal” existence - a chance to see things through a new perspective as visiting a new place can only help you do.

There’s nothing like taking a baby into the big city to do all that.

If you read happydash.com at all, then you already have the sense that we are blessed with an unbelievably sweet (and almost universally happy) son.  I love taking him to new places, watching how he takes in an entirely new experience.  It gives me some clues about how we’re meant to interact with the world - seeing how he observes, remains neutral, and then - nearly every time - smiles at whatever/whomever he’s just met.  I think that he’s taken my typically optimistic view on life to an entirely new level, in just a short almost-7 months of existence.

For me, the things that I tend to find the most rewarding involve human contact.  Sure, physical contact is nice, but I’m also talking about that feeling that you get when you and another person have managed to truly communicate and touch, within each other, that spot where your soul, your common humanity, resides.  You share something meaningful, you smile, you get the sense that, at least in this moment, you really KNOW that person.  And they know you back.  That’s the kind of thing that makes me really grateful to be alive, to be a human on this here planet.

So I was actually kind of nervous about going to NYC.  The couple times I had been there before were fun enough, but I still couldn’t shake Jim Croce’s soundtrack from my mind (that’s the reason that I gotta get outta here…I’m so alone…etc.).  It’s not that I didn’t find New York to be exciting, but more that the people I would see there seemed so isolated and shut down by the sheer volume of other people/stimulation that I would find it difficult to be who I am - open, communicative…friendly. 

Initially, as Toni and I carried Dash into the city, I was prepared to defend Dash from the barrage of the city and any negativity he might encounter.  From the moment we stepped onto our first subway train, however, I could tell that things were going to be VERY different during this NYC experience.  No sooner had we walked onto the subway car than someone immediately got up to offer Toni (who had Dash at the moment) his seat. Amazing! 

And then Dash did what I always do - he started scanning the faces of the people around him on the subway.  So many people - so many different lives all intersecting at that one moment. 

Now most of you probably have experienced the “subway stare” - which is essentially that other people on the train stare off into space ahead of them, doing their best to pretend that they are anywhere but right there with you.  You almost NEVER get eye contact or a smile - and when you do it’s more often than not c-r-e-e-p-y.  But this experience with Dash was entirely different.  As HE glanced around that subway car everyone else glanced back.  As HE smiled at people they all couldn’t help but smile.  As he looked, smiling, back-and-forth from these new people to his parents, these other people made eye contact with us, as well, smiling, nodding, and clearly enjoying the moment.  In those first few minutes of New York City life, my son had managed to transform the lives of all the people on the subway with him - including ours.

Dash has this thing that he does - we call it “magic hands” - where essentially he holds his hands out, arms outstretched, and makes these slow, mystical motions, as if he’s conjuring up the world in front of him.  We joke about how he must think that he’s controlling his experience through these intentional, deliberate gestures.  In those moments on the subway it was clear that he was, in fact, the master of all that was happening before him.  And we were all much better for having been mastered.

That wasn’t the only mystical experience we had in the city, of course.  For now, however, I’ll leave you all with this photo from our Union Square experience - watching a spiritual healing take place.  The guy in the yellow is the one getting healed, the one with the dreads is the one doing the healing.  Of course as the whole thing went down we had no idea what was happening - we just watched the giant dreadlocked fellow select a spot (about 20 feet away from us), sit down with his…healee(?), and, out of nowhere, generate these bursts of sound - some of the purest tone that I have ever heard come from a human being - which were directed at the healee.  If not healed myself, I certainly felt intrigued (which is how I even know what was going on - since I asked the yellow-shirted guy about it after the healer had gone off to kiss all the trees in the park). 

New York City is a spiritual place.  That dreadlocked 7-foot-tall healer practiced handstands next to us for about 10 minutes after he completed the aforementioned round of tree-kissing.  Yes, it’s a spiritual place, and I’m not going to let the fact that the dreadlocked dude got suddenly got a call on his cellphone change my mind about it.

Kudos to you for coming back around – it’s been a long hiatus from blog-ville, though I bet you figured out what was going on in my absence.  That’s right…my son, Dashiell Llindhe (pronounced DASH-ul LIN-dee) entered the world in the wee morning hours of January 24^th, 2007 (2:44 am for those of you who are astrologically inclined and who are reaching for your ephemeris), and it’s been non-stop fun ever since!  Mostly it’s been a crash-course in “what my parents must have gone through,” although thankfully our society has learned a lot about childcare/breastfeeding/etc. in the past 33 years, enough so that we know we can let our child sleep where he’s happiest and eat ‘til his tummy’s full when he’s hungry.  My mother likes to bring up how when I was born her doctor told her to switch breasts every two minutes while I was trying to eat, so just as I was getting settled into my meal it would be abruptly interrupted, on and on every two minutes, until I think I would just get fed up and go into freak-out mode.  We’ll save the commentary on that for a later post.  Meanwhile, my wife and I are slowly getting the hang of things, slowly coming back into balance, slowly catching upon missing sleep, and slowly emerging from our seclusion.

After a bit of contemplation, the family has decided to start happydash.com, where we will be posting pictures of Dash (you all remember him as “boober” from this post) in all his mostly smiling glory, along with our thoughts on parenting, cool stuff for babies, fun things to do with your baby/toddler/child/teenager, and words of wisdom from the dash himself.  That site will also help alleviate my guilty conscience for when I write about things other than dash on neilsattin.com.

All is well here – Dashiell is up to 12 pounds (he was 8lbs 3oz at birth) – and all the sustenance comes directly from his mama (if you know what I mean).  He sleeps in 2-3 hour increments, and we’ve worked ourselves up to generally one 4 or 5 hour stretch in the middle of the night.  And during the day we have all sorts of opportunity to interact with him – he tends to be very calm, aware, and talkative!  Every so often we’ll echo something back at him that he’s said, and he’ll give us that look of “hey, did you actually understand me for once?!?”  We still keep meaning to break out the baby sign language book, which hopefully we’ll do before he turns 12.

Everyone always says that having a child “changes your life” – a suggestion that’s so patently obvious that I always overlooked its truth.  I assumed that they meant things like “you’ll never sleep through the night again” or “you’ll always have to work that 9-to-5 job” or “kiss alone time with your spouse goodbye” – all ‘negatives’ and, granted, the product of my own interpretation of their tone and knowing looks.  What I’ve discovered, though, is that my life HAS changed. 

I think that I feel what my parents must have felt, holding me, staring into my eyes and being so amazed by the new life before them.  I think that I understand what true hope is, as I envision a future for my son that allows him to thrive and prosper long after I’m gone (which is still, hopefully, a long ways off J ).  I know why my definition of success includes “time” as much as it includes “money” (and “happiness” of course).  And ok, I’ll admit it, I now having a working knowledge of tax-deferred ways to put away money for his benefit.  So see, my life HAS changed – in way more ways than I can list here – and entirely for the better.