Canadas at Home: Family in 1999

Esprit Turns One

January 1999: Our little girl is one year old. In fact, in some ways, she is not so little anymore. Since her arrival on January 18 last year, she has gone from a 6-pound, 9-ounce, 21-inch long baby who rarely left her parents' arms to a 21-pound, 2 1/2-foot tall toddler who is right at home in the world. Never one content with being a couch potato, even when she was about as mobile as that vegetable, Esprit has always been a free spirit, and now that her legs will carry her virtually everywhere she wants to go, she is seizing life with both hands, carrying it around with a big grin on her face, and crying, "Ooowow!" She is still our little girl, of course, but now she is becoming her own little girl, as well.

Having heard a thousand friends and strangers warn us how fast babies grow up, we have concentrated on savoring this extraordinary time. We feel blessed that Lisa is able to stay home with Essie, giving her meals, walks, attention, and love. I get to spend a lot of time with both Essie and Lisa, having arranged me schedule so that I can go in to work at 7 a.m. and come home at 3 in the afternoon. When I get home, I spend some time with Essie while Lisa has time to herself, and then we trade places so that I can work out. The rest of the afternoon and evening is family time, when the three of us eat, play, and read.

To celebrate Essie's first birthday, we invited a few friends--mainly neighbors, fellow church members, and mommies and babies from her play group--to join us for a dessert party. Lisa enjoyed the opportunity to make some special sweets--including chocolate-covered strawberries, roasted pecans, and a birthday cake--and Essie enjoyed playing with her little friends and generally being the center of attention, although in this latter respect the day resembled every other day of her life.

Easter 1999

In addition to the Easter Bunny, we had two special guests this Easter. My parents traveled all the way from Indianapolis to spend the holiday with us, and the five of us had a wonderful time. The star of the show, as always, was Esprit, who went on an Easter egg hunt and generally reveled in the Easter Bunny's largesse, which included a red wagon. Cast in supporting roles were my mom, who sewed a beautiful Easter dress for Essie, and Lisa, who created several gorgeous flower arrangements for the church.

Mark Wraps Up School Year

May 1999: Ever since I was a kid consuming books about baseball and writing stories inspired by my pet dachshund, I have loved to read and to write. Later, I became interested in journalism, studying it at Indiana University and working as a copy editor for two newspapers in Indiana. Finally, I settled down to teaching. Now, as I complete my second full year as a professor of English, I realize that I have the perfect job, one that allows me to pursue virtually all of my interests. For starters, I get to read all the time. For the literature courses I taught this year, I revisited some of my favorite works, including Benjamin Franklin's autobiography, and chose a few new books--Dante's Inferno and Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights--to expand my horizons. A research assignment last summer gave me the chance both to read and to write; in putting together an article on literary sheriffs for The Companion to Southern Literature, I read, among other things, Erskine Caldwell's God's Little Acre and James Dickey's Deliverance. The latter was so riveting that Lisa and I finished it in two days, taking turns reading it aloud to each other. I also had the satisfaction of seeing three items that I had written previously appear in print. My article "The Right Brain in Poe's Creative Process" appeared in the summer 1998 issue of The Southern Quarterly, and Oxford University Press published my entries on Thomas Dunn English and Frederick Kemper Freeman in a reference series called American National Biography. I did a little creative writing, as well, completing a sonnet called "My Esprit Nueva," inspired by Esprit's and my baptisms last year, and a haiku called "You made us," which I wrote for Lisa for Mother's Day. My teaching brought me a lot of satisfaction this year, as well. In addition to teaching composition and Major American Authors, I taught two courses for the first time: freshman seminar, which is a study skills course, and a graduate linguistics course called "Contemporary Issues in American English." I also put a new twist on Introduction to Literature, turning it into a "great books" course and exploring the issues of good and evil through the Book of Genesis, William Shakespeare's play Othello, and several other works. Finally, I even played journalist a bit as I acted as editor and publisher of All American: Literature, History, and Culture, a World Wide Web site I've created.

It's as though someone designed this job just for me. I'll be certain of it when the university gives me a sabbatical to play first base and bat third for the Brewers next summer.

My Esprit Nueva

Shadows linger, and I, their source, have grown
Accustomed to the night. For here I've been
A blissful man at home, a denizen,
Who sees and knows the world by shades alone.
The dim but graceful evenings I have known
Are gentle mothers bathing me who then,
Still gentle, lay me down on down. Few men
Have seen what I have seen by stars alone.
Morning? Morning bursts upon my eyes
A blazing, shimmering something new that you,
You, my morning messenger, bring. I rise.
What wondrous new life is this? What new
Spirit are you? am I? O! so bright
We are and, see, all the earth is light.

You made us

New souls, poised and charged,
Stretch forth wings, soar, breathe, seek, mark
A home, safe and warm.

Esprit's Second Christmas

It wasn't exactly deja vu, but it felt a little like it. I was putting together a toy or setting out presents, I think, when I realized that I was doing what our parents used to do. Essie has been with us for almost two years now, but at that moment I became a dad. There have been times when I could not quite fathom that I was a parent, and there will be others, but there also will be more epiphanies, I suspect, more moments when I suddenly realize the momentous and glorious change that has come over my life. Indeed, I know now that parents grow along with their children. Just as our sons and daughters do not instantly become men and women when they turn 18, we do not turn into mothers and fathers when our children are born. Instead, all of us gradually and continually become.

This Christmas season was full of special moments like that one. Many nights, Lisa and I drove down Main Street in Laurinburg and showed Essie the Christmas lights: glittering white silhouettes of reindeer and snowflakes and Christmas trees. With all the amazement and excitement of a child to whom all such things are new and fabulous, she oohed and ahhed and pointed. During the day, when I was off from school and Lisa was busy with her new catering business, I got to spend some wonderful moments and even whole afternoons with Essie. Twice we went to Fayetteville, where we had lunch together, snacked on cookies and milk, and rode a little train through a Christmas wonderland filled with snow, carolers, and toy soldiers. We also spent some time in stores, of course--so much, in fact, that Essie added a new word to her vocabulary: "shopping." Throughout all this activity, she also became aware of a new person, someone who apparently was enjoying great fame all of the sudden. Pictures and statues of him were everywhere: on a store window, on the mantle over the fireplace, on television. One was even dancing to the tune of "Jingle Bell Rock" on a table in a department store. After a while, Es developed an eagle eye for this international celebrity, and she called out his name when saw him: "Tanta Caw, Tanta Caw." As sometimes happens when we meet our heroes in person, however, she became rather anxious when it came time to sit on Santa's lap. She cried at first, but with Daddy's help eventually calmed down and let one of Santa's helpers take a picture.

Although she was too upset to share any of her Christmas wishes with Santa, he managed to deliver when the big day arrived. I don't pretend to understand the ways of this magical man, but I know that Grandma and Grandpa Canada came to visit us for Thanksgiving, and I suspect that they put a bug in his ear because he hit the bull's eye with his gifts, especially the Fisher-Price house. Walking Elmo was a big hit, too, as were the fabric Nativity set and toy Walkman that Essie's godparents, Chris and Carolyn Henry, sent her. Christmas was not all fun and games, however. Santa also brought a laundry set, and before long Essie was busy washing and ironing the new socks that Mommy and Daddy found under the tree. Thanks to a shopping basket that her Grandma and Grandpa Henry sent, she also is better equipped to join Daddy on future visits to the grocery and department stores.

Along with all of this joy came one sad moment: the departure of the Christmas tree. Lisa and I had no idea that Essie had developed such an attachment to it, but she became hysterical when Lisa tried to take it out. We reached a compromise, however, and found a place in the yard where Tree can live and where we can visit it from time to time.

New Year's Eve 1999

December 31, 1999: To the Romans, who gave us the names of our months, "January" apparently seemed like a good name for the first month of the year. They took the name from their god Janus, who was depicted with two faces looking in opposite directions. Today, however, the name would better suit December. By the time January arrives, we Americans--famous for looking ahead to the West, the air, space, and the future--have already done with looking backward. In December, though, you can still catch us looking both directions. We're buying our new calendars and making our New Year's resolutions, but we also are counting down the year's top songs and singing "Auld Lang Syne." Like Janus, we are still glancing back even as we look eagerly ahead.

So much the American am I that I usually dispense with the backward glance and focus on the year to come. Still, give me a year like 1999, and even I feel a bit like Janus. Indeed, to complicate things even further, I find myself looking back at an earlier self looking forward. I remember thinking, back when I was a kid, about the year 2000. I calculated that I would be 33 and wondered what things would be like. Now, somewhat eerily, that year is just about here. What do I have to say to my previous self, the boy looking forward? Life is great, kid. I somehow managed to locate the perfect woman for me, and we have a daughter who has opened up new doors to joy for us. We live in a comfortable home in a beautiful part of the country, and I have a career that both stimulates me and gives me plenty of time to relax. Enjoy your years in high school and college, kid, revel in those first years of marriage and career, and know that it only gets better.

The coming of the biggest date change in a thousand years also has me looking forward to myself looking back. What were things like back in 1999? Of course, the only things that change overnight are dates, but eventually historians and even I, as a literature professor, will use dates as convenient markers of historical epochs, and we will try to describe the "world of the 20th century," maybe even "life in the second millenium." To the sea of reflections, commentaries, and top-ten lists, I contribute the following brief remarks, addressed to the self and society that will arrive tomorrow: We are a flawed people who want to be better. As individuals, we make resolutions, pledging to be healthier, more punctual, more organized. As societies, we form associations, organizations, and task forces. We raise money and give it away to relief agencies and medical researchers. We elect leaders and pass laws. We have done our part. Now it's your turn.

The Canadas' Choices for Person of the Millenium

Mark

John Locke (1635-1704)
English philosopher whose ideas shaped both modern philosophy and modern political systems, especially those of England and the United States

(with honorable mentions to Sir Isaac Newton, William Shakespeare, and the child psychologist who invented time outs)

Lisa

Queen Elizabeth I (1533-1603)
Her reign established England as the world's foremost power and allowed artists Shakespeare, Marlowe and Spenser to flourish. Elizabeth may or may not have been a feminist, but she ruled better than most English monarchs before her and better than anyone since.

Essie

Santa Claus (?-present)
Northern philanthropist