soft souled boy

Today I am in love with you. You smiled at me. You seem to respond to me. You have been sick the last few days and in a bubble of discomfort that was hard to witness. All I could do was feed you, hold you, rock you, sing to you, talk to you but I couldn’t make it go away. I couldn’t fight it for you. How many times will I feel this powerless to protect you? How many times will I wish to simply do it for you.
Today you looked at me, watched me, seem to want to understand me. We even play together. I clap your hands together. I dance with you. As I sit in our chair watching you fight off sleep, I try to imagine you as a man. You will become a man and you will probably take on much of what it is to be a man in this culture. Right now you are so free of it. You cuddle and nuzzle like a little animal. You are beyond gender. You are simply a being. But one day you will learn that you should not nuzzle or cuddle, that you should not cry or show your soft vulnerability. You will learn that you are a boy and that this means something special in our society. I want to keep you from it. I want to let you just be a being. But all the cars, wrenches, blue wall paper, macho hand shakes, sporty competitiveness, deep voiced pressure of our culture will lay its hand on you. I don’t know what it is to be a man. I can’t teach you that and so again I am powerless. I can only teach you to be human and that to be human is to feel and think and care. You won’t nuzzle me for long in your lifetime. You will learn that it is not okay to nuzzle mommy forever and I suppose that it isn’t. But may you stay soft my son. May you keep your soft and cuddly soul in a world that may try to harden you.