A few days ago a familiar smell greeted me that I identified shortly thereafter; hamster bedding. I obediently followed the sweet, close aroma to the heart of my childhood. I don’t know where the scent came from or what it rode in on but ever since, I have been spread eagle, straddling the past and the present, one leg stuck in a urea-laden reverie heavy of a time when life was simple and the after-thought cares of one six-ounce creature were my sole responsibility.
In my present life, I have a three-year old who pretends to be a mouse named ‘Cheese.’ Her care is never an after-thought. I live and breathe to keep her happy and comfortable. She is at the forefront of my mind even in the absence of consciousness. When she calls out in the night, my feet hit the ground before the second ‘m’ in mom is launched from her lips. Having a child places your heart outside your body for the rest of your life. I’ve called this feeling ’scary love’ ever since the day I brought my daughter home, terrified of the greatest potential for loss I had ever encountered. Not hamster-sized. This is big love, and I’m not talking about polygamy here.
Smell is one of the swiftest conductors of memory. In one hamster-bedding waft, I am back to having scabby knees, velcro sneakers, and mini hands spending hours at a time daydreaming, tinkering, watching, playing, and being lulled to sleep by the likes of Pooh, Rabbit, and Piglet. My biggest vice is butter, my delinquency is skipping ballet class, my contraband is a water balloon, my daily dilemma is deciding to trade a scratch and sniff for a fuzzy. My parents are constants. My sister is both my best friend and my worst enemy. My mental map is one block squared. I am still occasionally carried or strolled pretending to sleep, squinting my eyes in the deep concentration of pretend.
I don’t remember when I got my first hamster maybe because there were several in my life. One would get lost and soon replaced later to be found post-mortem in the far recesses of a closet. With each new rodent I’d pour a fresh, woody bedding, position the iconic chrome hamster wheel, hang the nifty water bottle, fill the small dish with pellets, and set my responsibility free. Occasionally I’d pick him up, Hamilton was always his name no matter which hamster I was on and regardless of gender. (Stonewall Jackson was our dog, I guess we had a thing for past presidents in our family.) Usually he’d wiggle his nose and stare plainly at me, with two unblinking inky irises. Once in a while and seemingly randomly he would bite me with his long yellow teeth and I’d reflexively throw him back into his aquarium, indifferent to the velocity of his fall or the impact of his landing. Occasionally I’d usher him into his acrylic ball and let him run around the room futliley clawing his way forward until he inevitably collided with the junk in my room and had to change course. Often times he’d pee during this pause, his tiny brain rebuffering.
I got to know these creatures well experiencing care and love on an infinitesimal level. Eventually I was able to discern the nuance of expression behind those beady eyes. I was able to sense these creatures’ fear, irritation, boredom, and very real need for love. I smelled of their fur, heating it with the warm air exiting my nostrils before breathing in The Hamiltons’ sweet pheromones. Scent bonds creatures together. I do the same thing now with the top of my daughter’s head inhaling the swirly confluence of her hair, a coordinate that is fleeting-moving upward and more level to myself. There is a similar sweetness to her smell. I breathe her in and become drunk on scary love and impermanence, arriving immediately into the present.
This zen state spent huffing my daughter’s cow-lick is unsustainable. I am called to return to the now with presence of mind leaving behind the hamster-bedding induced state for my life in the here and now. The seductively sweet hamster bedding took me back to a time and a place when I was the lucky object of scary love and my attachments were few. Now I am the bearer of scary love forced to exist moment to moment with my heart on a tricycle, in a sandbox, swinging dangerously from a tire, my heart who says hello to someone who doesn’t say hello back. I still get randomly bitten from time to time. The difference now is that I can’t throw down and walk away. I must hold. I must love no matter what.
Tags: Hamster, Scary Love, Smell
Can’t find the words to tell you how this took me back in time today, Mother’s Day.
This is SO true! Object of love versus bearer of love, this says it all. I’m going to send this to my mom.
“In my present life, I have a three-year old who pretends to be a mouse named ‘Cheese.’ Her care is never an after-thought. I live and breathe to keep her happy and comfortable. She is at the forefront of my mind even in the absence of consciousness. When she calls out in the night, my feet hit the ground before the second ‘m’ in mom is launched from her lips. Having a child places your heart outside your body for the rest of your life. I’ve called this feeling ’scary love’ ever since the day I brought my daughter home, terrified of the greatest potential for loss I had ever encountered. Not hamster-sized. This is big love…”
What a remarkable passage. And what a *remarkable* sentence: “Having a child places your heart outside your body for the rest of your life.” I am childless but this one sentence alone of yours opens up to me a more profound view of the joys and terrors of parenthood than I could ever learn from books or know personally. What luck to have stumbled* across this. I will share this with as many people as I know would appreciate it. And as many who wouldn’t—some seed on barren ground always survives and grows. Profoundly, thank you.
*you could not guess and you won’t believe what brought me to this site. As a joke on a friend, I was googling ‘grotesque emoticons’—no, *really*!—hoping for some adolescent snigger-worthy monster/vamp/zombie stuff, and found this blog. The writing’s sharply perspective and so read more and…wow.
Micheal, I am thrilled you stumbled upon Pony. The way it happened inspires me to keep creatively tagging my posts. Please do share my site with anyone and everyone. We bloggers love site traffic. In the interest of full disclosure, I think you may be my first non-friend/family member to read this. In fact you are. Did I say I was thrilled? I am elated. You have made my month. I will write more soon. Promise. Oh, and I do hope to make it to the Vancouver airport eventually. Peace.