Simon.

Little Avelyn came up to me today. She’s beautiful. She’s like a rolling carnival of sunshine. Sparks shooting off of her in every direction. Those eyes. They’re your eyes you know. Green and deep and full. A museum of possible things. All the things that might be. That will be someday. That are the beautiful gold-leafed spines of books we have yet to read. But her smile is Adelle’s. And those silvery blonde curls. Such a fortune she was born to. What must it be like to live your days in the company of a dancing ray of light? Anyway. She was at the lake with your mother and we walked together out to the dock and sat and fed the ducks and she sang me the song about the crow who went to market. “his vest of purple and gold, hopping along the rafters, for to choose an apricot.”

                And we talked of school, she loves art class. And her best friend is Daisy Cranston. And she wanted my opinion as to whether it would be worth it to ask for a trip to Disney world for Christmas. I told her it never hurts to ask. Her legs, clad in slouching socks and scuffed pink maryjanes kicked the entire time, and she talked to the ducks. There was one, one of those beetle-shiny, green-headed males, that was particularly handsome in the bright of the day and she named him Senor Herman. She advised him to be a fair ruler (he was the duck king, you see) and to be sure that all of his drab subjects got the same number of soggy bread crusts. Then she asked what would have happened had the Emperor who had no clothes  been a duck. Because they don’t have any clothes anyway. And so nobody would have cared.

                What an amazing thing is a child. It was nice being one, but I think it may perhaps be even nicer to watch one. To watch the light burn and burn behind their eyes, and see it shoot out of their fingertips and glow down the strands of their hair. To watch it dance in their feet and swim in their expressions… of love and hate and wonder and faith and sadness.

                Your mother is well. She says you are working too hard. That you aren’t sleeping. But when have you ever slept? Always preferring the dark hours. Not wanting to miss even one minute of your life. We would stay up reading. Two books, but we’d share them so much that we’d both end up having read both books at the same time. Or out, having successfully escaped the bonds of doors and windows and walls, out under the moon, on the roof of the porch, dreaming and humming and making our plans.

                She says Adelle is doing well with Jantz. Also that she bakes an amazing lemon chiffon cake.  I think sometimes, often really, about leaving. Getting out. Maybe New York. Maybe Prague. Maybe Australia. Maybe.