August 6, 2006

dear

you know why i went back? because i wanted to be surrounded by my old familiar books again. i wanted to sit in a dark basement and have at my disposal a full wall of picture books, all my favorite illustrators -- just like that one christmas i spent with jenny and kevin mcintire in tennessee when i was nine. it snowed a few inches and we even managed to build a snowman from the powder on the front lawn. inside, it was all reading and all coloring with my new prismacolors. the walls were wallpapered in stripes of yellow and the pillows were down. remember the story i had published in the atlanta journal-constitution? and the pictures? my parents never clipped them, because they didn't know. well, i can still sort of remember what they were about.

anyway, i didn't want to grow up so fast. i didn't want to have any more discussions about economics and the state of art. i wasn't interested anymore in strange inside-jokes and sarcasm, even though they made me laugh. it was an imaginary intimacy; i knew it from the start. to tell you the truth, i didn't care that much to talk about it so much. i really just wanted to eat the fruits and think about the thundershowers, when i heard other girls say "i'm scay-erd!" i stared at the enormous clouds and fell in love.

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