Source: FuckYeahMoleskines (from The Beatrice Letters)
So this is pretty wonderful.You can find the full quote here. I think Lemony Snicket (a.k.a. Daniel Handler) is one of the most underrated children's authors out there. Not because he isn't famous and award-winning and hasn't made heaps of money over the years (he has), but I'm convinced people don't really think of depth when they think of Snicket. They think clever. Or funny, or wry or interesting, but there is an awful lot of heart to his writing that often goes unnoticed. It's an 'eyes-wide-open' kind of heart--not everyone's cup of tea, but wonderful if you like a little cyanide in your fruit punch. (I do.) His Y.A. collaboration with Maira Kalman from last year, Why We Broke Up, was also stellar if you're looking for something a little more grown-up than, say, The Latke Who Wouldn't Stop Screaming. I read it right after I found out I was pregnant with E. and it was gorgeous and distracting and exactly what I needed at the time. My love for Kalman is also well documented, so there's that too.
Thank you guys for your comments and encouragment this past week. The growth spurt came and went and my tiny newborn was suddenly a BABY, huge and cooing and alert. I suspect we will do it all again next week. He smiled at me for the first time. Not a smirk, but a huge, toothless grin, again and again. The midwife who hosts the mom's group I attend likes to say that babies smile exactly when they do for a reason: otherwise, at 6 weeks, we would put them on Craigslist. She is joking, of course, but also kind of deadly serious. Just when you begin to think you've made a terrible, terrible mistake and will certainly fail this child in every single way imaginable, they smile at you and then all that screaming with a side of screaming melts away and you die on the floor right there. And I have seen a lot of things in my life--some truly epic shit. The houses of monarchs and the Grand Canyon and the sculptures of Michaelangelo, but nothing, I mean NOTHING could have prepared me for that smile. Everything I ever wanted to be or do or see in my tiny, stupid, insignificant life was right there, written on his face and I knew I could keep going and everything was going to be okay. (Because I love him as a drawer loves a secret compartment, and as a secret compartment loves a secret, and as a secret loves to make a person gasp...)
All love,
*Andrea
