Robin, my new granddaughter, is just a few months old and I don’t know what she is thinking or even if she is thinking. She as no words yet, I know that. She can grip fingers in her hands.

Robin has the ability to study people and situations and concentrate for long periods of time, and this seems an unusual trait to me, in babies or adults.

She strikes me as someone who needs to make up her own mind about things, and studies them carefully.

Her gaze is intense, even fearless, but it is, of course, impossible to know what a baby is thinking any more than it is to know what a dog is thinking. Human beings are arrogant, we tend to assume the entities we love are just like us, and we like to think we know what they are thinking.

We project our own stuff onto them all the time, and babies and dogs are blank canvasses, we can paint anything we wish onto them and they can’t challenge or correct us. Babies and dogs do not have words, they do not possess our complex human narratives.

Unlike dogs, children do develop the ability to separate from us and tell us what they are thinking, and we often do not like to hear it. I certainly love this child, my daughter’s child, but I am not being swept away in this river as many people promised I would be.

I won’t be, not because there is anything wrong with it, but because I don’t want to be, and that is the part that is up to me. This is not my child, she lives hours from me and I can already see how we will have a wonderful relationship, we seem to have no trouble connecting, even after a long absence.

Part of this is up to me. I will be attentive, send her thoughtful (and not so thoughtful) gifts and  hope to have time with her every month or so. It is not possible for me to go to New York City too often, it is a good ways away.  It is not possible for her to come and visit, although I hope the farm will be magical to her if she does. Donkeys have a way of entering the consciousness of human beings.

I do not wish to be one of those grandparents intimately involved in the life of a grandchild, my own life is full and challenging and needs my attention. I have only once shown anyone a photo of Robin, I don’t show people photos of my dogs either.There is something presumptuous about it.

At the same time, I take photos of both and put them up on the blog, and perhaps that is my way of doing the same thing without acknowledging it.

People are free to look at them or not, I guess that is the difference in my mind. There are natural geographic and emotional boundaries at work here, but so far I love this child quite a bit. That’s what I want.

That is the part that is up to me.

The next part is up to her. If she is drawn to the farm, to me, to Maria, if our bond grows and deepens – it well might – than we will go one step at a time. I have learned in life, especially with family, to be cautious and to not make assumptions about the future.  I am sometimes right, often night. Relationships are not predictable. I look forward to showing her things and taking her places, but she lives in New York City with two very attentive parents, there is not much she will not get to see as soon as she can see it.

I have a friend who told her son that she would kill herself if he and his daughters moved out of the country. I could never do that, and would never want Emma to live anywhere because I pressured her. She does not belong up here in the country, nor does her husband, nor does my granddaughter. It is not the best place for them at this point in their lives, I know it, they know it.

The job of the father, I believe, is for the child to not need him at all when he or she grows up, or if so, only occasionally. Emma lives her own life and makes her own decisions, most far better than the ones I made. She does need me once in awhile, and i it is a pleasure to try to help.

My granddaughter is not an emotional reward for my parenting, or an emotional gift to me. It has to work on its own accord, so far, so good. I things things are going so well.

I am not being coy or artificially male- like. My feelings for Robin, and for Emma are, I am sure, quite obvious. I wouldn’t try to hide them and I would fail if I did try. I’ve been doing this awhile, and have lost the appetite or skill for deception.

As with politics, I want to wait and see what happens,  not rush to judgment. I am open to it, for sure. My life has been enriched by Robin, I love her stare. But it is still my life, and she has hers.

I guess in a way I am trying to be as thoughtful as she appears to me, perhaps we will swing around and meet one another somewhere along the line.