Wow, so my friend Jon Frinke and I were discussing Shaun Tan's beautifully amazing new book The Arrival and its potential Printz worthiness, though, in fact, it is a wordless story. . . when our conversation stumbled onto an old Chicago acquaintance of his, Wesley Willis. It seems Jon was one of the thousands? who on occasion lined up for the ceremonial head bang blessings. See more here.

It truly is a beautiful life and makes for some striking callouses.

Speaking of which, while dealing with an all too recent almost amicable divorce wherein he clearly moved on long before I delivered our sweet second child, I have become enamored of books on grief. Started with Here If You Need Me by Kate Braestrup and found her voice quite soothing, yet strong; warm and brave, as I am sure many of her wardens would say about her. Now I am into Joan Didion's Year of Magical Thinking and really digging it. I can relate even though he isn't dead and loves someone else, I find myself trying to think him back into my life and wanting the future I thought we were having. Make sense? Well, to Didion, perhaps. I feel like the last reader on the planet to get to this one, but hey, all in due time (and seemingly without warning but strong foreshadowing).

Well, I am looking forward to Amy Cohen's The Late Bloomer's Revolution. My dear friend has that now and I can see that soon I will seize the day and love the fact that the father of my children left me for his assitant while I was still post partum. Ah, here's to someday. Why not now? I'll tell you. Because every night that I have my children to tuck in, the nights when they are not staying in my big beautiful old warm house, with their strong, handsome daddy and his new, fresh, beautiful love, every night that I get to read their bedtime tales and snuggle them in beside me, I see his dark Italian eyes looking back at me. And that is the heart of divorce with children. The struggle to separate, the search for closure is just out of reach. Maybe not always. I see little signs of hope. But right now, it is the fall and I am remembering just how we fell together. And I am loving how we fell so hard so fast so strong once that I didn't notice who let go first.