Sunday 7/14/19
Blackened Birds: The Beatles, Stones, and the African American Musical Geniuses Who Taught British White Kids How to Listen, Write, and Change the World
"It's nice of you to do that with Benny. E has only five or six antianxiety pills left, as an FYI. Yesterday after I finished a 5000 word short story I took her to a free Mozart concert at King's Chapel, then dragged her with me to Charlestown (I climbed the Monument ten times while she napped on the lawn, but that's teenagers, I guess). She wanted to stay inside all day and I said that's not awesome for mental health. Then we got ice cream and had it by the water and discussed Schubert. After I wrote a Wall Street Journal op-ed today I took her to Charlestown again and helped her with her school project. She's doing the nonfiction part on Thoreau's journals now. We have been talking about high school and challenges that will await her as she goes along in life. I told her that in her life she is likely to be the smartest person in every room she enters. That's true. And it can have its value and allow for deeper connections and a greater immersion in the world, but it can be hard, too. She thinks what I'm saying about her mental acuity is true because it is coming from me, but she doesn't see it herself yet. She knows I am going through a very hard time--the worst time yet of these seven plus years of hell--and barely hanging on--though I keep a lot from her, of course, given that she is a child--and the other day she brought me tea and a chocolate and a metal straw so we could help save the turtles. I give you this little update because even though I know how proud of her you are--and it registers on your face, even--you really should be."