First Birthday

How a year can whip by. Or last an age…

When it’s just one sixty-seventh of your life, as in my case, it seems little more than the blink of an eye. But when it’s the whole of your existence, it’s everything. Nothing could be longer.

That probably makes it a real mercy to be pretty unaware of the passage of time in your first year. Otherwise it might seem painfully long. But it’s fine if you just enjoy each day as it comes, testing your increasing powers and resources as you go, as most of us do at that age. It’s only a shame that you’re unlikely to remember any of it later, since when else are you going to be that carefree?

First Birthday party
The cake was such fun. Especially when I could pick the fruit off it

At any rate, it was a great pleasure, and a privilege, to be able to attend the first birthday celebration of my granddaughter Matilda. And to wish her well on the second year that she’s just starting. There’ll be a lot of fun for her. Though there might also be a little pressure.

That’s the problem with life. It’s full of expectations. At first, it’s mostly other people who have them. Later on, you have them yourself, which is even more painful.

In Matilda’s case, for now, it’ll be mostly other people’s.

Poor thing. We were all so pleased when she mastered the art of crawling. She does it now with what can only be called aplomb. Great skill. To say nothing of speed.

But, I’m sorry to say, Matilda, adults are fickle. We’ll soon be expecting you to do that thing called walking instead. And once you’ve mastered that, it’ll be running that we’ll demand. Just be thankful that, for the moment, you’re not being asked to do it the other way around. Once you start work, you’ll meet plenty of people who’ll claim that nothing could be further from their minds but, in fact, demand that you run long before you walk.

And then there’ll be language too. For the moment, it’s pretty clear that you understand English well. We ask you to do things, and you do them promptly. If they’re things you want to do. We’re not fooled, you know: when you fail to do things, it isn’t down to your not understanding us, but to your deciding we can wait. Until you’re good and ready. Or even longer.

Why, you’ve even started to produce some words yourself. I keep hearing ‘yes’, at least at the ‘ya’ level. You don’t bother with ‘no’ because you have gestures for that and, boy, are they unambiguous.

We’ve heard something that sounds like ‘Mummy’ and a series of sounds that could be taken for ‘papa’ too, at least in the form ‘baba’, but that’ll do just fine.

Your grandmother and I are also certain that we heard you say ‘granddad’ a couple of times but, hey, we’re hardly impartial observers. Every else denies it. They may be right, but I like to think they aren’t.

You should, of course, keep on making the great progress you’ve already shown in language. The bad news, though, is that you’re about to face a challenge in this already difficult area.

You live in Spain, you see. You’ve probably noticed that lots of the people you meet make sounds that aren’t like those your parents and grandparents produce. By your reaction, you know very well that they mean well, and it wouldn’t surprise me that you understand them too already, since you’re bright enough. But here’s the thing: you’re going to have to start mastering those sounds yourself, as well as English ones.

Are you ready for that? Learning Spanish too? Everyone will tell you what a great advantage that’ll be for you, and they’re right. But it’s another task you have to take on, another challenge that you have to face.

And that’s the thing about life generally. It’s always that way. You get a challenge, you rise to it. And what’s your reward? You get to face another challenge, usually harder than the last one.

You don’t know about climbing mountains yet, but you will, since there are plenty near where you live. And the thing about climbing them is that you see a slope ahead of you leading to a crest, and you expend so much energy to get to the top of it that you feel you can’t go another step. And what do you find? That far from being at the top of the mountain, you’ve just got another slope with another crest ahead of you.

Still, if you press on you do get to the top in the end. And that’s a great feeling. In fact, so good a feeling that you can end up looking for more mountains to climb just to enjoy that feeling again.

You don’t yet about metaphors, or a metáforas, but that was one of them.

A year is long in the short time you’ve had so far. You’ve started another one now, and it won’t feel quite as long. But, boy, it’s going to contain a lot to learn, a lot of mountains to climb, and a lot of achievements you can take satisfaction from.

Enjoy all of it. It’ll be fun to join you at your second birthday party, where we can celebrate all your new accomplishments. And I’m looking forward to helping you enjoy quite a few more birthdays after that.

Just a year ago. But it feels like an age