Oct

5

Okay

What is your favorite color he asks me and I realize I have no idea. Did I, once? I think of a certain autmn leaf’s fire-tinged maroon, dappled green light from sun pooling into a forest clearing, the cerulean turquoise of a warm-water sea. I can’t color these moments, they’re slipping away from me even as I remember them. Red, I say, and he digs through the box.

I want to draw the snap of twigs underfoot, the scent of Ponderosa pine, the teary salt-taste of raising your face from the ocean and seeing where the blue of sky touches the water, the cold late-light October burn, but I have this blunt piece of wax and I do what I can. I draw a square house, a triangle for a roof, a door. Draw me and Dylan and Daddy he says excitedly and now there are three stick figures. It’s us, he says. Make the cat, too.

I am not good enough at this, I think. I want the paper to dance, I want to bring something to life. I want to stop wanting things, maybe.

Outside the window the clouds have joined together in a swath of flat grey and the trees are letting go their armfuls with every gust and I draw one red leaf, not the right color at all, and he says that’s pretty and okay. Okay.

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Oct

2

Buds

Riley has made a lot of new friends lately (blaring chorus from at least five kids when I meet Riley after school: “BYYYYYE RIIIIILEY!”), but his daily playmate is the kid who lives across the street. They are horribly obnoxious together, stampeding around like elephants and making a seemingly unending number of saliva-laden explosive sounds as they play their weird boy-brain Let’s Blow Shit Up! games, and sometimes I sort of look back on the pre-friend days and fondly remember a slightly quieter, more peaceful existence that didn’t involve quite so much yelling and so very many Band-Aids—but of course this is what childhood is all about. How lucky is Riley, to have a friend who’s right next door? Man, they love playing together, and as annoying as they can be, I love watching them.

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As for Dylan, he just does his best to keep up.

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