What has changed

I'm a different person than I was six months ago. It probably isn't discernible to anyone else but man is it obvious to me. There's the physical part of course (almost none of it for the better - such is life), but much more dramatic are the emotional, psychological changes. I react to things differently. I see them differently - I'm more sensitive. At first I chalked these things up to hormones and brand-new-mom-itis, but 6 months? Let's call a spade a spade. There has been a shift, and I'm betting my money that it's a permanent one. Or at least a long-term one, anyhow.

*

The front page of last Saturday's New York Times featured, as its lead story, an article on the drought/famine in Somalia. Front and center, above the fold, was a photo of a woman in a refugee camp, baby to her breast. She was emaciated and looked exhausted, and the baby looked skeletal. Or maybe the baby wasn't skeletal; all I could see was the head. I didn't need to see bony little arms to know what was going on, though. She had walked for days to reach the camp. She was starving, and since she wasn't getting enough food or water, she wasn't producing anything for her little one.

This article came on the heels of Nils's 6-month doctor's appointment, where I learned that he had dropped a little on the weight-gain curve. 25th percentile down from the 50th. (Oliver and I, with our lineage; who'd have thought we'd have a skinny baby, right?) No big deal, I was told, but I worried anyway. "Little thing, " I said as I held him close and kissed the top of his head. "We need to fatten you up! Are you getting enough to eat? Are you hungry right now? Can I feed you?" Seeing that woman then, with her baby, and putting my own concerns next to hers... I felt sick. My little boy wasn't going to starve. My "worst case scenario" involved walking to the grocery store and buying formula. I could not imagine a scenario in which food was not available for Nils.

"Oliver, you've got to listen to this, " I said. I read him excerpts from the article, pausing occasionally to sniffle or blubber. "We're giving money to Somalia."

*

Just this past week I finished reading Eating Animals, a book I had been meaning to read for quite some time. It makes a strong case for vegetarianism, a concept/lifestyle I have a lot of respect for. I have never been a vegetarian, but I have been slowly cutting meat out of our diet for years - I estimate that we eat 75% less of it than we did when we got married. My reasons for doing this have always been environmental first and health-related second, and it has stopped there. Animal rights has never been a factor. I believe in the food chain/predator-prey thing, so meat has never been "unethical" for me.

Reading this book in recent weeks though, with its first-person accounts of the cruelty that is apparently standard in slaughterhouses and factory farms... it flipped a switch. I couldn't help but draw a parallel between these animals and my own little beast. In many ways, Nils is like a little animal. He can't communicate with me the way adults can. He can't fight for himself. He can't do anything for himself. I feed him, I bathe him, I shuttle him from one room to the next. Left on his own he would be absolutely powerless to get what he needed. And this vulnerability, it's part of what makes me love him so much. We lock eyes and I feel like I tune into something more powerful than just he and I. There's something about Life with a capital L there. He and I are a part of something bigger, and that "bigger" encompasses every living thing. Why not do my best to respect those living things, then? Sure, vegetarianism. Let's give this a shot, see where it goes.*

* It has been three weeks now, an effortless three weeks. It helps that most of my cookbooks are geared towards vegetarians. I will say this though: I woke up this morning with a craving for salt. The first salt craving of my life.