The beginnings of a rite of passage.

Brendan tells me this morning he wants to go to the moon like Little Bear, the character from Maurice Sendak's illustrations and Else Holmelund Minarik's prose. I read these stories repeatedly when the skill of reading first clicked in my head. Even today I feel the influence of the ink drawings and minimalist plot development. •Despite the pain in my knee (or because of it) I walked slowly along the man-made canal, the vein of water drifting through the neighborhood. Despite the fact that summer heat leaned over the houses on the midday hour, I walked the perimeter anyway. Brendan was at school and I had a few free minutes, perhaps for the first time since he was born three years ago. Hopefully this exercise will prove habitual.

•124/ A heavy lack lies next to him at night as he sleeps with the shades drawn open, allowing the night to slip into the bedroom through the unshuttered windows, a drowning of blue-black liquid. A coldness. A lack of warmth as he sleeps uncovered, undressed. An awkward body on a single cot slowly disconnecting from the hour.
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