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When I was in high school, my dance teacher crumpled up a plastic grocery bag and set it on the studio floor. We all sat there politely in our dance outfits waiting to see if she'd tell us her point.

"Watch," she said. We sat there like good little budding artists (even though I got a C for technique, I did get an A for choreography... or was it participation?) and watched the bag as it pulled itself slowly open.

"Isn't that beautiful?" she asked, and then said, without waiting for an answer, "I want your next dance to be inspired by that bag."

In case I haven't mentioned it before, I went to private school. Therefore, none of us laughed at her or rolled our eyes. We just got to work envisioning the beauty of an unscrunching plastic bag. In our dance concert later that semester, I remember being happy that, for several minutes, all I had to do was lie inert on the stage while the clustered girls around me began unfolding. It was a nice rest.

I think about that exercise pretty regularly when I come home from the Farmers' Market on Wednesdays and start putting the produce away. Usually, I sit Baby J in his Bumbo seat on the counter and narrate as I unpack.

"Look! Don't you remember when we bought the plums?" I'll say, or, "Isn't it exciting that they have lemons now?"

But Baby J cares not for produce.

For him, it's all about the bags.

I know what you're thinking: there are lots of really good reasons those bags have warnings printed on the sides. They shouldn't be left around unsuspecting babies.

Before you turn me in to CPS, though, don't freak. Baby J is not going to eat the bag or place it over his head. That's why I'd never leave him unsupervised, especially with something like that. Sometimes I'm a space cadet, but I can assure you that I'm not a moron.

Here's the thing, though: he really likes playing with them. It's not that he wants to eat them (it's a miracle!). He likes the noise they make. Sometimes I stand there watching while he scrunches them up and lets them unfold. Sometimes he just grabs them and waves them around, listening to the crackle of plastic against air. He likes to hit them against different surfaces, too, and pays pretty close attention to how they react.

I always take them away before he can do much else.

This might be trite, but I think it's interesting how much he has in common with my old dance teacher -- really, I suppose I'm interested in how different forms of creativity take shape.

A plastic bag is a cliched example (American Beauty, anyone?) but it's the best one I've got.

And maybe babyhood is like being an artist -- you have to find new ways to look at the things around you. Even if they're not earth-shattering, they ensure that you keep moving forward. Patrick Henry said, "I have but one lamp by which my feet are guided, and that is the lamp of experience." I always think of that quote -- how life is about moving forward in darkness, with only the vague outlines of the past guiding us as we attempt to move into position for the best possible future.

Sometimes I think of Baby J in that context, taking in new bits each day, striving to get his bearings in a world that has more in it than any of us can possibly imagine.

I suppose the best possible future is all any of us can hope for. I hope he's able to make it for himself. It's one of the things I care about most in what I know of the world.