Rattle Rattle Rattle

Dr. Tomatis experimented with sound. He implanted microphones in wombs, while the resident was still there. (Did he really do this or am I mis-remembering?) He wanted to hear and to record the sound of the mother's voice as it was felt/heard by the unborn infant.

 

And guess what? It sounded (and I've heard a recording, though I have to take his word for it that it was indeed what he said it was)—it sounded just like a little rattle. The mother's voice, filtered through her skin, her muscles, the wall of the uterus, and the amniotic fluid, sounded like chik-a-chik-a-chik. Pause. Pause. Chik-a-chik. Pause. Chik-a-chik-a-chik.

 

And this explains why rattles are important. People still sometimes give rattles to newborns, though the little pink or blue shakers are being crowded out by battery-powered music toys, wind-up noisemakers, and the ever-present tinkling of cheap but cheerful "music" designed to please the parents of babies. No one ever asks what pleases the baby. Maybe she wants to hear chik-a-chik-a-chik and that's all.

On the other hand, maybe she's already lived through nine months of chik-a-chik-a-chik and she's ready for something different. Maybe the chik-a-chik-a is to soothe the still-unfulfilled child within the adults. Maybe each of us should carry around a little rattle. When we feel overwhelmed by the noise of the world (the air conditioner in the neighbors' back yard, the renovations two doors down, the music from someone's leaking iPod), then we could unobtrusively retrieve the rattle from our pocket and give it a couple of quick shakes. Instant mother-memory.

 

This chik-a-chik-a phenomenon might explain why, years ago, I burst into tears when a gifted healer shook a turtle rattle over me as I lay on the table. Turtle: symbol of the mother. Rattle: sound of the mother.

 

Copyright 2008 Ann Tudor   

www.anntudor.ca
http://scenesfromthejourney.blogspot.com

Babies and Children: Baby Belly Laughs (by Sam)

 

I haven't been around long—only six months, to be exact—and I know I still have a lot to learn. But I wanted to set down a few of my thoughts in order to help those of you who are looking after me and others like me.

 

Okay. I'm a baby. A generic male baby. Like most middle-class North American babies, I'm the apple of my parents' respective eyes. They're pretty sure that they're the only people ever to become parents and that I'm the most amazing baby in the world. Gratifying stuff, even though I know it isn't completely true.

 

My main purpose here is to fill you in on what makes me laugh. Don't take this as gospel, because it does vary from day to day. But maybe it'll help you come up with a few comic routines that work more often than not.

 

For example, here's what my nana does. If I'm lying on the floor she brings her hand from far away to near, opening and closing her fingers. First she says, "Are you ready? Are you ready, Sam?" And then I see her hand and I see it coming, coming, slowly wiggling, and I know that it'll soon be at my tummy, tickling me all over. Just thinking about it as I watch the hand move makes me smile, and then I smile more and more and when the fingers start tickling me I laugh out loud.

 

So that's a trick that works. Except when it doesn't, of course. At those times all I can do is give one of those "I know you want me to smile so here's a tiny upturning of the lips to let you know I know you're trying" kind of smiles. Face it, sometimes I'm just not in the mood.

 

But here's something I really like. New songs. No one had ever sung this song to me until my nana unearthed it from her memories of the 40s and 50s. SO long ago! It's a song about going to Mexico. I don't know why it struck me as so funny, but there you are. Humor is a mystery, isn't it? I was hanging in my Snugli, facing outward, fully attached to my mom. My nana was going to say goodbye to us, but first she crouched down in front of me and sang, "Cuanta la gusta, la gusta, la gusta, la gusta…"

 

Now, I don't speak Spanish yet, but those were the funniest words I'd ever heard. I couldn't help myself! I burst out into a belly laugh that surprised us all.

 

So my nana did what people always do when they get me to laugh: she did the same thing again. And again I couldn't help myself; another unrestrained belly laugh. And by now we were all laughing—me, my mom, my nana.

 

Nana stopped singing. I stopped laughing. She looked at me silently and I watched her face. And then she started singing very slowly: "Cu-u-u-u-anta la gusta…." Gales of laughter.

 

She came up with other words to the song and the entrainment of laughing kept me guffawing during her whole performance. But oh, that chorus!! It was a killer!

 

Someone said recently that there are lots and lots of nonsense songs awaiting me. I'm really looking forward to hearing the one called "Mairsie doats." I'm sure my nana knows it.

 

Copyright 2008 Ann Tudor   

www.anntudor.ca
http://scenesfromthejourney.blogspot.com

Thoughts on Things: Opera in Action

Our house was on a corner lot, and the front yard was unfenced. One summer the house across the street was rented out to a group of five or six male university students. I didn't know them and didn't see them often because of my work schedule.

 

But one Sunday afternoon they had a party, a beer blast that involved a lot of oversized young men drinking beer and playing touch football in their yard.

 

And then touch football in the street.

 

And then touch football in MY yard.

 

Now, I've never known how to confront anyone. We were raised to avoid confrontations. If it can't be swept under the rug, then suck it up yourself (although I don't think my mother phrased it quite that way).

 

So there I was, alone in the house, watching these big, noisy, boozing, young men encroach on my territory. They were completely harmless, I'm sure. But I was angry that they were in my yard.

 

I was sitting on the living room sofa listening to the Leontyne Price recording of Cosi Fan Tutti. As the players drifted across the street to my yard, the noisy touch football game began to interfere with the opera.

 

What were my options? I could ask the boys to leave. Or I could keep quiet and hope that they'd eventually go away. Given my timid nature, there was no way I could confront them, so my only choice was to wait and hope that they would drift back into their own space.

 .

I decided to speed up the process. I cranked up the volume on the record player and opened all the windows on the first floor. The noise of the opera was deafening inside the house. And "Come scoglio" thundered out into the yard. Thundered! Leontyne Price louder than life-size.

 

I showed no mercy. More bass. More treble. More volume. Mozart filled the neighborhood.

 

After a short time, the game withdrew from my yard to the middle of the street, and from there back into the boys' own yard. By then I was too out of sorts to listen to the rest of the opera.

 

Would an actual face-to-face request have been as emotionally draining for me as cowering on my sofa waiting for Mozart to do the job? I can't answer that.  We do what we can with what we have at any given moment.

 

Copyright 2008 Ann Tudor   

www.anntudor.ca
http://scenesfromthejourney.blogspot.com