Settling

'Settle' has such negative connotations, doesn't it? As in, settling for a particular job, or life partner, or a less-than-optimum room at your hotel in Cuba. Settling in this sense means giving up your higher ambitions, shrugging a 'to hell with my ideals' shrug, and abandoning forward momentum for a soft glide in a more frictionless path, where sheer inertia is keeps effort unnecessary. Settling is apathy, a loss of passion or higher purpose, a deadly sin in a culture that prizes entrepreneurial pluck and get-up-and-go.

In another sense, settling can mean 'settling down.' Again, the connotation is of giving up: giving up loud music and recreational pharmaceuticals and outrageous political opinions and wild haircuts and distression body piercings. Settling down marks the end of carefree nomadism and the beginning of a 25 year mortgage. When you settle down, you settle for a job and a life partner. You settle for less than your dream life. It's the kind of stuff mid-life crises are built from, the slow stifling diminution of the authentic self eaten away in routine.

We are not a culture that looks kindly on settling.

But settling can have positive connotations, can't it? After a bad fright, we can settle down into a more tranquil state of mind. After a hard physical effort, we settle into a soft chair and relax, eyes closed and heart slowing.

I've been thinking a lot about settling, as the obligations in my life pile up and Pynchon and I take on a whole new person in our lives to care for and provide for. I'm happy with my life, my life of car payments and a mortgage and bus tickets and lattes and home repair and $200 trips to the grocery store and couple-time carved out of naps and bedtimes. Of a screen saver perpetually cycling baby photos. I like all this. I'm content and ... settled. Despite my contentment, I can't help but sometimes feel as though I've failed somehow. Settled: there's no way to spin this positively and sound vibrant, dynamic, alive? Is there?

Settled.

Even though Miss Baby is on formula now, and the Magic Boobies have been retired from service, it still largely falls to me to give her her final feed at bedtime, before depositing her in her crib, kissing her forehead, and pulling her blanket up. She's always tired, but she's sometimes not sleepy. When I feed her in the dark, rocking slowly and sh-shushing her, I feel her settle. It is the most calming, beautiful thing to watch, to be a part of. Now that she faces up at me, she locks her eyes with mine. Full of beans as we sit down, she flails her arms, pulls hard on her doudou, smacks my arm, digs her thumbnail deep into the palm of my hand, pushes the change table with her rigid legs. Yanks the bottle, bites the nipple. As she settles, she becomes gentler, quieter. She watches my face carefully. Her legs still, and she feels heavier on my lap. She coos and her breathing becomes rhythmic. The best part: the hands that have been pinching and smacking become so gentle. She rubs the hair on my arms so softly I get goosebumps. She reaches up and pats my face. With one finger she rubs my lip. Inserts a hand between my arm and my sweater and absentmindely wiggles her finger, feeling what it feels like, all these new sensations that she's settled enough to take the time to experience.

Eventually the bottle empties, or her eyes start to droop. I kiss her on the forehead, and lift her limp little self up--really, it's all I can do not to scoop her up into a hug, but I put her down in her crib, tuck her in, surround her with bears. She watches. Settled. And goes to sleep. And then I don't feel so alone in my contentment--so maybe I'm not living my childhood film star glamour life hard party fantasy. I really think, after mature consideration, that this is better.