traversing the family tree
My niece Jessica is so small. My hand is bigger than her head. Her hand is smaller than my thumb. Each of her fingers ends in a perfect miniature fingernail. The moment I saw her, I began to babble nonsense at her and make dumb faces. I held her. Her face has the immaculate beauty of a doll, but she is alive! She wriggled in my arms, somehow simultaneously oblivious to me and deeply connected. She is so human, but she is so small.
Also, I watched an episode of 30 Rock on Ricky and Karen's huge flat panel TV via digital cable. The perfect image quality, compared to the broadcast reception we get at home, makes me want to cry. Almost as much as the price of digital cable makes me want to cry.
Also, my parents and I stopped by in Chinatown to have dim sum with my grandmother and my uncle. It's weird, I almost think of New York and Chinatown as separate cities. Throughout my childhood my parents took me Chinatown dozens of time, but I never internalized that it was surrounded by the New York I saw in television and movies. Anyway, I was very glad to see my last surviving grandparent again; I recently missed her 80th birthday celebration. Whenever I see her, I desire in vain to develop a stronger connection with her, to learn more about her as a person. Maybe I just use the language barrier as an excuse: I could always have my parents translate for me. I don't know, maybe it's enough to see her when I can on my trips home, to smile and to wonder if she feels the same immediate connection of family. Maybe I am just an eternal baby to her. I know she's not just babbling nonsense at me (“she says you've gotten taller”), but I am still making dumb faces at her.