I wish you all good things.

  

So sometimes you sit around on a Saturday night with your fevery, teething baby, thinking about Terry Gross. Because Fresh Air is often on in the car in the morning in the only half hour you have to yourself each day, and she has become something of a friend, that Terry. So you think about her in between the baby's cries, and you rock back and forth, and you think about her voice and the way she listens to people. And you think of how you would like to learn to listen to people (including the crying baby) in just that way.

So you come across an interview between Terry and Maurice Sendak. And you've heard it before, even remember parts of it clearly, but Sendak. You've long held that he is something like a shaman or a high priest when it comes to this thing people call 'children's literature.' There was no one higher and now he is gone, and you don't want to think about that but still you google for awhile and come across a video. Animated illustrations, really. An artist whose picture books you are familiar with, Christophe Neimann, has illustrated the last five minutes of that interview and so you watch it. 

And it should come with a warning label. The radio interview itself should come with a warning label, but to see it illustrated like that, well. Damn. You are not prepared for it. The chronic sleep deprivation is surely not helping, but it goes beyond that. You are crying in that way that is definitely NOT ATTRACTIVE. But since the baby is also covered in tears and snot and drool, you decide a snot and tears party is in order and so you and the baby commune for awhile in that way until he finally falls asleep. And for one night you have achieved Terry Gross' level of empathy.

And you are living your life.