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I don't remember much what I was like when I was very small. I think if I were to be a child now (and my present self being a child could be quite a different person from my real child self), I should be the one to always be saying, "Do it again," and to have the same books read to me every night. I am desperately fond of tradition, habit, routine. I feel like our culture is on a perpetual quest for novelty. It isn't in love with novelty, it just follows after it very hard. We all desire the good and know we don't have it right now, so surely it will be in this new thing, this different way of doing things, this dramatic experience. I wonder how long, if ever, before we figure that out?

I have to tell you about our grocery store. You would go into spasms of joy over it. It's even smaller than you are imagining, in this log cabin down town, with Elijah the Wooden Indian guarding the front door. It stocks only the basics recognized by the 1950s and frosted animal crackers (so no healthy organic options or experimenting with culinary rarities for us). However, I am quite happy, because that includes my cooking and eating necessities nicely: milk, cream, butter, eggs, and cheese. It is run by a family who have all the exactly same faces and wardrobes that consist only of rubber boots, yellow rain coats, and plaid. You'd think they were trying to appeal to a tourist population, but there is no tourist population, so maybe they haven't noticed what charm they possess, or have rustic illusions of grandeur. Their faces are all the same, but they each have distinct voices, so Thad tries to get them to talk so we can tell which is which. (He exaggerates, of course, because they are all different ages and sizes, so we can tell them apart that way.) My favorite is the teenage daughter, who has this throaty gray voice which is what smoke would sound like if it could. Woodsmoke from a nice campfire.

You might want to ignore my Pretending to Be Deep bits of yesterday. You know I write to help myself think, don't you? So lots of times I'll say things that are only half true or the shadow of what I mean or second cousin to the thoughts I am trying to find out. I'm writing to find out, so don't be up in arms. Instead, use your arms to give me a nice little hug and say very softly, in a mothering voice, that what I said isn't exactly how it is. Part of the way I think is saying things that aren't true out loud so other people can tell me the other side that I can't see on my own.