books — Essays & Experiments

After heavy snowfall, some New Yorkers look for signs of God in how swiftly the crosswalk slush piles clear. We are-- most of us-- cynical by nature; not soaking our shoes on our commute is really all we need to find a modicum of faith.

Today the deep, wet imprint of boot soles near the curb, a black puddle at the base, confirms for us we are IN FACT the forsaken people, at least for this week. Cynicism spreads again, so fast it could hold professional development trainings for the Flu Virus.

I, however, look elsewhere for signs of God: in how readily the pinwheel of my mind slows down, how mercifully God's hot morning breath eases off the exhale, so that I can come up with a plan. In this case, a plan about my kids' school situation.

In NYC, you're well served to put your offspring, real and imagined, on (pre)school waiting lists when your newborn's first cry pierces your ears. Think of it as substitute for the calendar reminder on your phone, albeit a bit tactlessly loud.

There's a wait-list for the wait-list, in infinite delay, like the staircase in an Escher painting which morphs into a flock of birds who won't ever land.

However, my husband and I are not the types to think ahead sufficiently. We're more apt to relish in the baby's cry for its own sake, and then deal with each looming life necessity as it approaches-- a bigger headache for not having anticipated its arrival. When you choose this path, you need to be optimists by default-- because if you aren't, not only is the glass half empty, but you spilled half on your new laptop. Double-sucky. That kind of regret.

So I've got preschool on my mind for my 21 month-old.

I'm rushing along faking a careful pace, the New Yorker way, on the icy sidewalk, late to work; my head is months ahead, considering the administrative job I might be selected for. This involves me getting more money and responsibility (good things), but less time with my offspring and step-offspring, and the choice hurts.

For my youngest, I am hunting for a preschool anywhere close to my job to maximize time with him. Anywhere. We could commute together, read books on the train. Problem? I work in Flat Iron district, aka Flat-Broke Ironically district. The relative cost of a bottle of water--$3 for the mini-- tells you about how much you'd get bank-yanked for the cost of early education. While your kid gets a head start, your ATM withdrawal only lets out long unproductive whistles.

However, a few buildings down from my work, there is a storefront artsy preschool-- I think it's actually called Preschool of the Arts. Capital A. Like you could have a Preschool of Math and Sciences (Sorry, honey, we ONLY count and measure here), or Preschool of Economics (Sorry, sweetie: mommy and daddy had to drain their bank account to send you here, so consider this your higher ed!). Fantastic. A girl can dream...

I peer in to the PoA window and see a bunch of strollers empty in their front room-- it's sort of a lobby but doubles as their arts library. Not sure if this means this is the kind of preschool where the parents or caregivers must stay on during the day. The lined up strollers remind me walruses sunning themselves on a huge rock.

A friend told me some sea mammals looks innocuous, like these strollers do-- friendly if dinosaurian-- but are so viscous that a single dominant male kills all the other males so he can have all the lady sea mammals to himself. And then he just chills on a rock gloating. This is why you should watch nature videos. This is why you should mind your metaphors. Though I've heard preschool is pretty ruthless too. And alpha strollers are definitely a thing.

I'm ruminating about this geographically desirable preschool, which there is no way we could afford unless I harvested and sold an egg from my ovaries to solve the fertility issues of some poor other mom who desperately wants a kid who could then desperately want this kid to attend said artsy elite preschool and so on....when I see their bookshelves.

The bookshelves are built so the book covers, not the spines, face out, a style we've copied in our apartment by deconstructing my old futon and mounting the frame low on the wall. My son's favorite thing to do is to pull all the books out and leave them on the floor. So very literary, he just wants to be among all the stories. They are the best thing to slip on, way better than the tiny hot wheels cars, which I somehow find in my bra, in my backpack, in our little cooler-- babies are closer to squirrels than we acknowledge in the tree of life.

But these preschool bookshelves-- I can't help but snoop in their collection. I make myself later to work needing to know what they choose for their edifying library for these young creative types.

This is one of my oldest and most unbreakable habits. If you invite me over to your place (no pressure) and station me remotely near your bookshelves, I will no longer even hear the things you're saying to me. I'll nod in the right places from years of practice-- tuning people out to commune with the books-- but don't be fooled.

I'm quietly reviewing your library, and mooching in my mind, taking mental notes on how my own shelves could be more, better. The books we have in common are our real kindred pulse. If I have nothing to talk about with you but we own many of the same books, then we can sit there and nod at each other awkwardly and sip our drinks because there is a more important subterranean bond. It has to do with how we exercise our imaginations, our literary liaisons.

But these preschool bookshelves should tell me something about the place-- how multi-cultural, how cool, how conscious. Of all the outward facing titles, the one closest to the window, and most dominant is: "God's Paintbrush."

Come again?

For the literal minded, the cover features a thick paintbrush, like you might use on your apartment walls, and an even thicker rainbow.

Now, ignore the way the word "God" alone can make me prickly for a moment-- and it's not because I don't have a belief system of my own. God is the backrest suppled right when your lumbar is fatiguing; God is that cup of tea you somehow didn't finish but thought you had, the dregs of it, the pure bitter twitch, just enough punch to get you through the 45th phone call to your arcane insurance company; and yes, God is the mercy that lets you realize your fuck you's are not best spent here, on these unhelpful cogs in the machine; yes, God is that force that causes you to dream of your husband's ex-wife as a benign, clueless barnacle, who just wants to tag along and do normal shit together, like shopping trips-- God; god is the way your husband looks right after he falls asleep, when his hands relax-- or when the baby flings his arm open to hug you, a trick he's learned will get your to squeal-- this, this, this--God, yes, God--

But, "God's Paintbrush?" The image of the rainbow on the cover has no variation from standard rainbow spectrum (Is God Boring and Predictable?), arcing across a cloud-free sky. I know where this book is heading: "God with HIS paintbrush makes all the pretty colors of the world..."

I'd rather see a tropical storm, God going grey, God brooding about the weather systems, God branching out from tidy saccharine displays to a more muted, more ambiguous color scheme, God ruminating, from a place of great peace, I'm really not sure which way this is heading, folks, hope you don't mind my own ambivalence toward humanity, I'm not looking out for you, in particular, not any more than I'm looking out for the walruses or pigeons or slush piles, I'm just here, grand backdrop, ultimate mercy....but enjoy preschool sweetie, they have some good books--

....because in Preschool at least they'll make sure you wash the paint off before it seeps into your skin; that you have a reasonable snack at a reasonable time of day, a fake nap, rotate activities so different parts of your mind are stimulated--a predictable life that bespeaks an orderliness in the macrocosm that the microcosm is conveniently reflecting, most particular in how it educates its young. That and teddy grams. That and apple juice. That and shape sorting. That and learning the rules.

I pushed the rules in Preschool. I was a bit ungodly. I bit a boy's finger in our sharing circle, a boy I like and who liked me. I didn't want his hand on my chair, right? I can still feel his pinky bone between my teeth, and how startled both of us were. I don't think I drew blood, but it was a feral choice. God's rainbow quivered, blanched.

Did you know in some parts of the world, in some cultures, people pray all day long? That's their day job? You know what they're praying for? Please let my son or daughter get into the preschool of choice, let my child find god on the bookshelf, not in, say, heroin, let my child remain chosen and say all the right prayers in the right order, o merciful merciful God who plays favorites transparently....

"God's Paintbrush." By the time I finished just those two words i had completely ruled out the preschool OF THE ARTS which I couldn't have afforded anyway, not with three times the salary I'd be making. Because here's the thing.

I don't want my son to be told what God does with her paintbrush. I don't want my son to look up at the sun blistering through the barely clearing clouds and think, "Yup, there goes God, chez artist!" I want my son to come to his own conclusions. To look up a the weird beauty and say to himself, "Damn, only God's paintbrush could do something that startling!" But not because someone told him a story, you see. Because with his own god's eyeballs, with his own only-so-free mind, with his own creative sensibilities, he saw the majesty the world sometimes coughs up, and called it like it was.

You could say I was judging a place by that cover; you're right. (It's a stupid cover, K?) You could argue that I didn't look further: maybe that book was more like I imagined than like I feared. I slowed down the rest of the way to work; I didn't slip on the ice, my mind raced less. Ribbons of rainbows cut through the slush eddies. People uncautiously continued using their phones despite the hazards on the sidewalks, making calculations, calls, and for all I know, prayers, putting themselves on preschool wait-lists in a timely, non-sarcastic fashion.

I pulled open the heavy door to my office building. That post-storm sun behind me was god's little wink; his paintbrush is never fully rinsed, she's always finding that bit of canvas that needs just a touch of this, just a tiny bit more of that. It'll still be imperfect at the end. I'll leave it to my son to tell me one day the things god has painted, maybe. First, I gotta find him a preschool.