I'm not the greatest with babies.
I suspect it's because I have a hard time with baby talk. I will speak to them in a toneless voice, ask them if their blanket traps warm air, lecture on the psycho-spiritual benefits of walking. This might be a sign I am a narcissist unable to mirror ~ but since babies are miniature buddhas, I tend to assume they pick up my underlying 'yes, you're a god ' emotional tone.

Though finally, after a few stupefying years of clown training, I'm starting to believe that baby talk is a portal...

There's something occult that happens to an adult body when it gushes out a raw sound for the amusement of a child. Like an instant karmic re-adjustment, or a re-turning, or ugh, you know...becoming the baby to realize you're a god, too.

My brother once took his baby to a four-hour photoshoot somewhere in the mall next door. As he described it, three adults huddled behind the camera trying to make the baby smile, only to have it make a gloomy poop all over the set design. I saw these photos eventually, and each one was a zoom-in of the baby dead asleep.
One might conclude these adults never entered the portal, and haven't we all been there? Surviving job interviews, not crying in the library, suppressing desires in the bread aisle...

But oh ! How blissful to really get a baby going.

Only the genius of a clown can be so lucky. A good clown has one brain cell, it doesn't plan, it makes mistakes with eternal optimism. A good clown lives for the portal ~ and so being that I'm timid for baby talk, could indicate clown training has yet to take root. Or perhaps, there is a way to be both bold and bashful and still be right with the world...that kind of duality is what this month is all about.

We've been engaging both versions of ourselves, the one drooling for a reaction from its audience and the one worried to look stupid. The first half of August we audaciously push past reservations to express something essential about ourselves. In spite of failures and flops we see the horizon of our talents with an optimistic view. The second half of the month we begin calculating the self-aware logistics of HOW? What are the details of our optimistic view? How will it be assembled? How do I make smarter mistakes? Our idiot child conspires with our adult instincts to arrange a sophisticated plan. We must be clever, we must be brave, we must get that baby going.