Day 3,698—Summer Stories—

Yesterday, as I was reading a Peppa Pig book about school to my daughter last night. We got to a page where all the kids counted, and my daughter loves numbers but gets stuck after 5 normally but then knows a lot of the order up to 20. When she counted to 5 and got stuck, I asked her if it was hard to remember the difference between 6 and 9 and she said, “Yeah.”

         We talked about different ways to remember the difference (6 sits down while 9 stands up), and she got it. She got it immediately. She counted to 10 without making a mistake four times. I gave her a big hug and told her to go downstairs and tell her mom.

         When I picked my daughter up from daycare yesterday, she whispered in my ear, “I love you.” It wasn’t a normal whisper; it was a kid's whisper, which was loud and very close to my ear, but it was one of those moments I immediately wanted to keep forever.

20 years ago, as I was working at the Wine and Cheese Place off Manchester. I remember listening to the Johnny Cash Unearthed collection at the store and the guy who owned the store. Who was usually drunk if it was after noon, came into the main area with his shirt untucked over his slacks. His hair was askew, and he was holding a lit cigarette as he screamed and shouted to turn the music off because the music was not for me. It was for the customers. There was no one in the store.

Today, I saw two young deer wandering around the cemetery, and I tried to take a good picture because I thought is there any metaphor better than this to represent the coalescence of life and death?

Summer stories continue tomorrow!