Revisiting the Old, Confronting the New
Lucia and I had an adventure this afternoon: we rode the subway to 116th Street, and I took her all around my old stomping grounds at Columbia. We walked through campus, and then we walked past my old apartment on W. 118th. We then walked back through campus and down Broadway, where I saw that although some familiar places were still there, much had changed. I’d planned to have a snack at an outdoor table at Nussbaum & Wu—and was surprised to see there were no longer any outdoor tables. (Perhaps it was just today?) So we walked back over to Amsterdam and I had an apple streudel at the Hungarian Pastry Shop. I felt like I should have a stack of papers in front of me—I spent many long hours there grading essays, drinking endless cups of coffee as I marked up comma splices and dangling modifiers and leaps in logic—but instead I had a baby, crunching on a Mum-Mum.
Though I spent four years in the neighborhood (three years in graduate school and then, after I finished my coursework, staying put in my student-subsidized housing for another year), I hadn’t been back to Morningside Heights since I moved to Brooklyn in 2004. It was strange, so strange, to be back. That was my first New York home. I was so young when I arrived. I can still remember how it felt back in September in 1999, watching Mom and Dad turn off W. 118th onto Morningside Drive after moving me into my apartment, knowing I was on my own.
Eleven years later—walking the same sidewalks, in very different shoes.
Tonight Andrew and I confronted a brand-new phenomenon: when we crept in to check on Lucia, about forty minutes after we’d thought she’d gone to sleep, we found her not only awake but sitting up in her crib. Sitting up! She was not sitting up when she went to bed, and I had no idea she could get into a seated position on her own. It gave me an eerie little shiver to see her like that—to see my baby sitting and knowing I hadn’t had a hand in helping her. I rocked her back to sleep (she seemed to really be in a half-sleep) and settled her onto her back.
Half an hour later, I checked on her again, and found her once again sitting—but this time she had her legs in a wide V and was folded over at the waist, sound asleep. She must have sat up on her own again and just fallen asleep that way. We hadn’t heard a peep; she clearly wasn’t in distress. It’s like she was sleep-sitting. I can’t get over this—she’s never gotten from lying down to sitting on her own during the day, and yet there she was. A new trick. Will she remember it in the daylight? Andrew was a frequent sleep-walker as a kid—perhaps she’s taking after him.
Though I spent four years in the neighborhood (three years in graduate school and then, after I finished my coursework, staying put in my student-subsidized housing for another year), I hadn’t been back to Morningside Heights since I moved to Brooklyn in 2004. It was strange, so strange, to be back. That was my first New York home. I was so young when I arrived. I can still remember how it felt back in September in 1999, watching Mom and Dad turn off W. 118th onto Morningside Drive after moving me into my apartment, knowing I was on my own.
Eleven years later—walking the same sidewalks, in very different shoes.
Tonight Andrew and I confronted a brand-new phenomenon: when we crept in to check on Lucia, about forty minutes after we’d thought she’d gone to sleep, we found her not only awake but sitting up in her crib. Sitting up! She was not sitting up when she went to bed, and I had no idea she could get into a seated position on her own. It gave me an eerie little shiver to see her like that—to see my baby sitting and knowing I hadn’t had a hand in helping her. I rocked her back to sleep (she seemed to really be in a half-sleep) and settled her onto her back.
Half an hour later, I checked on her again, and found her once again sitting—but this time she had her legs in a wide V and was folded over at the waist, sound asleep. She must have sat up on her own again and just fallen asleep that way. We hadn’t heard a peep; she clearly wasn’t in distress. It’s like she was sleep-sitting. I can’t get over this—she’s never gotten from lying down to sitting on her own during the day, and yet there she was. A new trick. Will she remember it in the daylight? Andrew was a frequent sleep-walker as a kid—perhaps she’s taking after him.
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