Last night, I spent out in Brooklyn, babysitting my nephew Cashel. I woke up with him this morning and took him to school. Which cracked my heart. Seeing him in his social environment, walking up the steps into this massive school, sitting down at the cafeteria table with other kids to color … What courage it takes to be a child. You have so little control of your destiny. Even if you are cripplingly shy, you have to deal. Even if you don’t want to do something, there are grownups around who will make sure you do it, if it needs to be done. They are such little beings, such sweethearts. It killed me to leave him there, but he was in very good hands.
We walked through the early morning of Park Slope, holding hands. Feeling his teeny fingers in mine. He talked nonstop. The entire walk there. It was all about Treasure Planet.
And last night, after reading him Casey at the Bat, we lay down in bed for a second, and he said sleepily, “Tell me stories from your life.” This was a first! Usually, it’s: “Tell me a story about a spaceship.” So I told him three stories from my childhood, and he was asleep in a matter of two seconds.
So this is a round-about way of saying, I slept over in Brooklyn, and my “country of the week” index cards are at home.
