Sunday, November 29, 2009

aidannadia

I am intrigued by patterns in behavior and personality. I want to understand the root of those patterns, not to change them or shape them or blame them, but just to understand humans for their humanness. Maybe it is my way of righting the nature versus nuture debate, settling my degrees in genetics and psychology once and for all. Every mother thinks their children a prime subject of study, but I have to say my little Noni-poo-poo's tendencies toward symmetry and the appreciation of backwards thought are hard to ignore.

If you smash Aidan's name nice and snug against Nadia's name then you have a palindrome. I have often said that Aidan and Nadia are opposites in more than name but now I am starting to wonder if by naming Nadia Aidan's name backwards we may have inadvertently planted some sort of backwards seed in her. If not backward then some sort of need for isometric clarity.

She has always danced to her own tune. She revels in the wonder of the world around her, even if it is the completely obvious, but it is the reversal of writing and the mirror imaging of her thought process that make me question how this came to be. She has this way of holding her hands in mirror of each other like she is holding a precious parentheses. She will define her ideas in the air with these hands, first to the left and always mirror her ideas on the right. It is like she is holding them there in space, little bookmarks in time that are teetering in equilibrium. If she has two, then one is always gifted to her brother. Her conference report shared that while she struggled a little with explaining basic addition, she rocked the story problems that required her to think algebraically. She writes from left to right and then from right to left. Nothing to worry about her teacher assures us. I too love symmetry, evenness.
Maybe it is symmetry?
Maybe it is the result of a backward name?
Maybe it is fairness?
Maybe it is the truths of a global mind?
Maybe it is her way of striking balance in the world?
Maybe it is just Nadia.

3 comments:

Anaface said...

Who's to say that maybe the rest of us just do it backwards? Can she write with her left hand?

Melanie said...

She writes with both hands. I think maybe you are right, maybe we are the backwards ones.

Bella Mente said...

i love nadia.. and i can write with both hands.. maybe thats why i love her! haha :)