I’ve been singing to you since… well almost since the day you were born.  The story of Angel and his friends has always moved me.  But that last season, when so many of them die, it just endears them even more into your heart.

Wesley is my favorite, of course.  I thought I always liked Giles best of the Buffyverse.  I could relate to his sideline fathering.  And in the early days, Wes just seemed like a boob.  But by the time he was running things at Angel, Inc., that boy had really grown a pair.  And by the end of the series, I felt like I not only respected him the most of all the characters, but I related to him as well.

Angel points out to him “You’re the one that makes the hard decisions.”  He did it with Faith when he turned her over to the Council, with Connor when he was trying to keep him from getting killed by his father, with Angel when he pulled him up from the drink, with Lilah when he thought that she had been turned.  There in the last season he did it a lot: when his father came to town, when he faced Gunn and Knox, and when Illyria had no home.

Whenever I watch that last season, I always know that the waterworks are on their way.  I mean they really set you up to hurt.  Cordelia, Fred, Wesley.  Oh my god, even the scene when he tries to burn Lilah’s contract breaks my heart.  But that song.  That song just comes from out of nowhere.  I always think that it’s part of “A Hole in the World” but it’s not.  It’s part of “Shells“.  And it just springs on you with those chords and that voice of Kim’s and all the sudden you’re weeping, even before you see Fred driving off to LA.

I think I started singing that song to you as a way to keep myself connected to the characters in the show.  You know, how when you read a book you want a sequel so immediately–and then you find yourself on the web, reading about the characters, and trying to drink in everything about those people that you can?  That’s why I made a Rogue Demon Hunter character on City of Villains.  It was a fun way to play Wesley’s dark side.  The guns looked cool, especially with the dual pistols.  And Wes always looked cool with his guns, too.  And the thugs–just some guys you get to help you out and that are disposable.

But that song takes me other places too.  There something in it that reminds me of a few places around Arkadelphia: like the Vaden bridge and the road on the other side of the river.  In fact, it kind of feels like the river itself.  It just sums up those Arkadelphian feelings of frolicking in the wilderness.  It’s “take charge of my life” lyrics remind me of “Heads Carolina, Tails California” which I listened to when I found the Vaden bridge–and maybe of all the hurt that was going on in my life at the time as well.

There’s no way I can sum up everything that that song embodies for me.  But sometimes I just need to feel it, and let it wash over me and bring all my sorrow to the surface.

He always kills off the ones you can’t help but love, you know.  That Joss.  Dear Anya, Wes, Fred, Cordelia, Wash.  I never felt that attached to Book, but his death felt really powerful, all the same because Joss just knows how to do that sort of thing.

I’m glad that he’s writing the Buffy Season 8 comics.  I hope he’ll do an Angel Season 6 one as well.  I know Wes is gone, but I still love the other characters, too.  And I heard that Joss had plans for Gunn getting turned.  That would Rock.  Vamp Gunn would make such an awesome Big Bad.

Hop into bed
Turn out the light
You can have a party in your dreams tonight
IT’S PAJAMA TIME!
Hush Hush
It’s Pajama Time!
hush hush
it’s pajama time!
Shhh
Goodnight
Sleep tight
–Sandra Boynton

I used to read those words to you every night, over and over.  For a while it was your favorite book.  Then you didn’t want me to read, you wanted to play with the books, run your finger over the pictures and the markings like Daddy does.  But with Pajama Time, you would tap your finger on the pages–the same way that Daddy taps out the rhythm of the rhyme when he reads the story song to you.  You know this book is different.

Is that why you cried?  Because you all the sudden realized that you missed this book?  Oh, precious boy.  I understand.  I do.

I’ve cried at books before too.  One of the most important books when I was growing up was But We Are Not of Earth.  It’s just a little young adult sci-fi novel about some kids who grew up in outer space.  But I fell in love with them when I read it.  Well, mostly I fell in love with the protagonist, and I related to the guy that was becoming her boyfriend.  She was amazing.  She led these three kids in stealing a spaceship driven by brain waves and taking it to a new planet where they could live like their ancestors did on Earth.  I think.  It’s been a long time.  I think I read it during the summer between my 6th and 7th grade years.

When I came to the last chapter, I got really sad.  I decided that I didn’t want to read it.  And then I decided to start the whole book all over again.  I eventually finished it, laying in the back seat of my parents’ VW Rabbit parked in the gravel behind the shoe repair shop in Heber Springs, Arkansas, on a sunny summer afternoon.  And then I cried again because it was really over.

Is that what you were feeling with Pajama Time?  Did you realized that those little animals dancing around in their PJs were your friends and that you hadn’t seen them in a long time?  I know; it’s hard.  Friends are important–even when they come from a book.

You’ll see these friends again.  And you’ll find other friends, too.  And you’ll make up friends of your own.  You have the imagination to do it already.

I love you, buddy.

Goodnight
Sleep tight

–Old Appalachian counting rhyme

It was a big day, wasn’t it, buddy?  We spent so much time outside.  I’m sorry you got so sad when I was trying to make the minnow trap, but some of daddy’s tools are just too dangerous for babies to play with.  We did have some fun, though, didn’t we?

Let’s see.  What all did we do?

You got up really early, and I took a nap on the living room floor–or tried to, at least–while you played in there.  But you kept doing so many funny things and kept trying to climb over me, so I eventually had to give up on the sleeping.  You had a kind of early nap, and I went out to get some groceries.  The plain yogurt was really good when we mixed it with the bananas, wasn’t it?  And the strawberries, too.

Then we made the minnow trap and went across the street to show it to the neighbor kids.  That was fun.  Then we showed the neighbor kids how the bow-drill works.  Then you got hungry again, so we had some more yogurt–out by the creek this time.  Then the kids wanted to go to the park and see if we could find some crawdads.  We saw some really big ones, didn’t we?  But Daddy and the big kids couldn’t catch them.  Then we came home and took a nice long bath to get the creek mud off of us. 

We’ll go back to the park tomorrow and see if our minnow trap caught any fishes.

The rock and pool is nice and cool
So juicy sweet
Its only wish to catch a fish
So juicy sweet

–Smeagol

Good night, Little Buddy.

–Mary Chapin Carpenter

It’s amazing how much that song makes me think of living in Queens.  I started singing those words to you over a year ago.  In the cold, New York spring time, while waking the hardwood floors of that lovely apartment in Forest Hills.

Man, that song takes me back.  I can feel the sensations of living there, hear the constant background noise of Queens Boulevard, smell the city coming into spring.

Of all the places we lived in New York, I think I liked that one the best.  It was a good commute to work–plenty of time to read a book.  I could even get a seat on the train most of the time.  There was greenery around with the little parks nearby, and the giant Flushing Meadows park, too.  That little complex a block over had the fountains and the huge trees.  We had a real balcony for the first time ever.  Good light came in through the windows.

And this song takes me back there.

I think I started singing it to you… well, first because I already had good memories of it.  I first heard this song when I worked at Burger King in Arkadelphia.  That was the summer after I got back from Kazakhstan, when I was in love with a girl named Jennifer, and I borrowed Mike’s Dodge truck to go visit her–court her, really–on my way home to see my parents.  I remember working drive-thru in the summer afternoons, looking out the window at the pine trees on Pine Street, hearing this song come on over the satellite muzak.

But I also started singing it to you because I want you to grow up knowing these truths.  There really is a whole lot of trouble and pain in this world.  You feel it already as a baby, don’t you?  That’s part of life.  Sometimes things are just hard or shitty or painful.  People die, friends move, shit happens.  But there’s also a whole lot of ground to gain.  Things you lose wouldn’t hurt so much if they hadn’t meant so much to you.  There are lots of things worth learning, there’s a lot of fun to be had in the midst of the pains.  You can walk through life feeling overwhelmed by the hurts, or you can fly through life, feeling overwhelmed by the joys.  It’s the wise man that knows how to do both.  I’ll try to help you be wise.

Good night, Precious.

I used to carry you all around our neighborhood in the Baby Bjorn:  One–to get out of the house and give Mommy a break, and Two–to put you to sleep.

Sometimes we would just walk circles around the neighborhood.  I loved that little campusy-looking, old-timey apartment complex of sorts right by where we lived.  It was nice because there was a lot of shade from the trees.  And because there were fountains.  I would always go that way whenever we needed to go to CVS instead of taking Queens Boulevard just because it was prettier.  And because of the shade.  We fair-skinned bald men do love our shade.

In the mornings, we used to go through there to get to the Dunkin’ Donuts.  Then we would take the donuts down to the little park that was named for some Jewish woman, and I would set you on the bench next to me–leaning up against me, really, because you couldn’t sit up yet–and we would… well, I would have my breakfast.

And then once it started getting warm, we would look at plants.  I loved the linden trees in that neighborhood.  The linden is such an interesting tree, with that modified leaf that the flowers grow out of.  It’s so distinctive.  I wish I had harvested some.  I think it’s the leaves that linden tea is made out of–for sore throats.  I’ve bought linden tea before, but I’ve never harvested it.  Oh well, someday.

And the violets and dandelions.  So many violets in that ‘hood.  You haven’t eaten any violets yet.  I hope you like them as much as I do.  Violets and dandelions in your scrambled eggs in the morning is a real treat.

Remember that little lawn by the Grand Central Parkway that had so many things growing there?  There were violets and curly dock and linden trees and sow thistle.  What else was there?  It seemed like there was just a plethora, and now I can’t remember it all.  Oh, garlic mustard.  And burdock.  Lot’s of burdock in that Jewish woman’s park, too.

And by that old Jewish school there were lots of things growing.  Plantain and wood sorrel.  And a mulberry tree.  I let you taste a mulberry, but that was before you knew what to do with any food that wasn’t in a bottle.  You’re doing much better with chickweed and dandelion flowers now.  I can’t wait for the purselane in our yard to come back so we can start eating that.

The first purselane I ever saw was in New Jersey–somewhere.   It was when I worked for that old guy, harvesting wild flowers.  We were at some kind of industrial park.  I don’t even remember what kind of plant we were harvesting, but I remember the huge patches of purselane growing all around.  I wanted some so bad, but the “industrial” part of where we were made me very leery.  The soil there was disturbed and must have had a lot of fertilizer in it because everything that grew there was pretty healthy-looking.  But I was afraid of the New Jersey industrial chemicals and the chance that the area might have been sprayed.

But now we have purselane in our yard.  When does that stuff come up?  We’ll just have to watch and see.

G’night, Buddy.

I fell in love with Morningside before we ever got there.  The name, of course, is wonderful.  But whatever website or book we learned about it in when we were studying up on the neighborhoods of Manhattan before we moved really made a good sell.  The namesake park, Columbia, Riverside Church.  Even though it was on the cusp of the very gritty (literally) west side of Harlem, it pretty much always felt like a safe community.  Lots of diversity.  The Dominican kids that helped us move in to our 5th floor walk-up on Broadway.  The Barnard and Columbia students.  The 24-hour Rite Aid.  Two libraries.  Twin Donut.  The elevated 1 train station.

But it was the park more than anything else that made Morningside so important to me.  Of course the wild in me wanted to find some wild in that City.  I expected picnic tables and a basketball court.  Those were there, but the were overshadowed by so much:  a high bluff that spilled in tiers with high roads and low roads, a rock wall with buttresses that held up Morningside Drive, a lake with a willow and a waterfall and waterfowl, a statue of Pan and a bear, and plants.

I love plants.  I study them and gather them and eat them.  I learned so many while I was there.  I found raspberries and violets and sassafras.  I gathered the raspberry leaves for your mom–to help with her menstrual flow–but I loved the taste of their tea myself.  The dried leaves have an almost banana-like quality in their fragrance, and a very soft brown flavor when brewed.

There was a rock that I loved to sit up on–well two actually.   They were good places to go and smoke a pipe and leave a prayer to the stones and hope for the best.  Dyadya Artur came to visit me there once, and we would get Twin Donut’s two donuts and coffee deal and go there and eat our breakfast and smoke our pipes.  That rock was by the dog run, overlooking the lake with its willow tree and its tiny little stand of cattails and the turtles and fish.  The other rock was closer to 123rd at the north end of the park.  It was easier to get to from our apartment, so I would usually go to that one if I had to run to the park at night to pray.  I happened by there one night, and I suddenly realized that it was the winter solstice, and I was so glad that I got to see the full moon through the bare mulberry limbs.

I think that the gods have been pushed back by civilization’s presence the same way that so many of the animals have disappeared.  It’s harder to hear them and be heard by them.  Concrete deafens prayers.  So does steel.  It’s like that Geordie MacDonald story about the shadows from the flames and how they were more real spirits than the shadows cast by gas light.

But once all this is gone, they’ll come back.  I’ll try to help you be there when it happens.  Maybe Dyadya Artur’s ancient shaman workout video will help us figure something out.  Or maybe the moon will show us through the willow limbs.

I hope I can take you to Morningside Park someday.  I think the raspberry canes have been torn apart and replaced with cultivated flowers.  But I bet you that there are still dandelions and violets and burdock in the lawns.

I never could dig up any of the sassafras roots there in that little stand of trees.  For one thing, it felt too exposed.  But for another, they were just getting started, and it seemed like they might have a good chance of making it.  So I would travel up to Inwood or the Bronx for my sassafras or Central Park.  There was a whole forest of sassafras in the Bronx up on the hill of plenty where the blackberries and sumac and dewberries grow.  There’s a graveyard on that hill too, and I always think of it when I read to you about the brown mother lizard who is basking by the old mossy gate because the drawing looks like the same kind of wrought iron work.  Does iron get mossy?

I bet I could have lived in that park if I’d had to.  So many forests.  And the stream and little lake.

Yeah, Van Courtland park was great.  So was Inwood Hill.  But Morningside was home.

You were born up on the Morningside
You were born up on that bluff so high
You were born under the dark Worm Moon
You were born when the moon was new

You were born where the raspberries grow
You were born by the burdock rows
You were born under the violet shade
You were born above the Harlem Plain

You were born by the waterfall
You were born and were loved by all
You were born by the willow tree
You were born into our family

You were born by the cattail stand
You were born on Lenape land
You were born where the mulberries fall
You were born where coyotes called

Goodnight, Munchkin.  Have some good dreams.