More Mar

Over the last couple of weeks, Helena Iara has developed a series of emotions that seem almost existential. She asks to see a little angel statue that she broke (the wings came off when she dropped it on the floor) and then goes, "ohhhh" and makes a sad face.  "More" has become a common word, but most often referred to experiences, not things (more riding on the bicycle, more time on the beach).  But the most touching existential desire is for the "Mar," a word she says many times a day, and then points to the beach.

Our house here in Brazil is on an island, and it's only a five minute bike ride to get to a spectacular beach, so I suppose that her demands for more mar aren't completely unexpected.  Even so, it's striking to see this love of the sea develop.  As we head downtown in the car, she knows that the bay will appear soon, and she begins to ask for it.  Today on the bike, as we headed down the hill, she asked plaintively, "mar?"

It isn't simply that Helena loves the ocean, nor does she really want to get it.  It's still winter here in Brazil, and though that doesn't make the sea as cold as it might be in February in Boston, only the hard core surfers and kiteboarders are out on the waves.  Helena is even a little afraid of the ocean, and if the waves lap too close to her, she runs back to embrace my legs or ask to get up.

Maybe what fascinates her is what Kant called the sublime, something that is striking and attractive, but also out of control: a roaring river, a pounding waterfall, the break of waves on rocks.  Though we might call it beautiful, the raging sea is something very different from the beauty of a well tended garden or an English brook where one goes punting.  It attracts and frightens... not unlike a dog or the wind in the trees or being thrown into the air, other things that she loves.

We adults like to manage things.  Babies seem to have a rather more healthy love and fear of beautiful things that they can't control.