Friday Dec 26

[no entry today]

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In my dream the sun shines and I am old and I walk on the sidewalk with a little boy. He wears strange clothes, short pants and sandals but still he wears a little brown sweater. His sandals are made of rubber, it seems, colored blue and glinting. A woman passes and smiles and asks him how old he is, I am three he tells her.

The little boy holds my hand as we walk, I lean to one side, reach down so as to keep my hand in his. I look down and see the top of his head, a pile of golden curls, he coos and sings and it is as if the voice issues forth from the curls themselves. The neighborhood is unfamiliar to me, the sidewalk is not crowded and doormen in uniforms stand and wave as we walk by. Curls of music, I tell one of them, he nods and smiles and it does not matter if he doesn't understand.

Now I am the little boy too and as I walk I step into a bit of dog dirt on the sidewalk and I stop and pick up my foot and put it back down, I begin to speak but I feel as if I might cry, I do not know what to do next. I look up and see my old self standing over me, a smiling figure with grey hair and glasses and a hat. I become my old self too and I see the little boy's distress, and I take the handkerchief from my pocket I bend down and wipe off his shoe, just a tiny bit of dirt. I fold the handkerchief and think I might discard it but now the little boy is happy again and we are walking in the park and I remember it is spring. The little boy stoops to examine a plant and I bend down to see and I can smell the damp earth and the little boy's hair, soapy and clean from his bath and I touch his curls and my heart is so full I cannot breathe and I whisper to him "It is spring, it is spring my dear one and endings do not matter."