The one about the butterfly. [Enclosed: An unrelated letter.]

After becoming unhealthily enamored with the book, House of Leaves this week, I put the book away in a new hiding spot in my house. I'll come back to it when I'm ready to devote more time to reading it. "Devote", isn't the right word to use though. "Brave", would be better suited to the previous sentence.

I put the book away until I'm brave enough to tackle the task of reading it from start to finish.

Out of sight, out of mind, pt. II.
(To be continued...)

This morning while Adam and I were outside in the front yard, waiting for his school bus to come, he spotted something on the ground and began jumping up and down, pointing at it. I looked down and quickly recognized it as the butterfly we saw last night. Last night it was fluttering it's wings; resting on the vines that grow along our fence line. It was alive yesterday, but this morning when we found it, it was now laying in the grass, stiff. It looked like a small, quarter-machine, novelty toy someone dropped and lost on the ground.

"What's that?! What's that?!" Adam asked me while he continued to jump up and down, almost landing on top of the dead butterfly.
I put my arm out in front of him to protect the last little bit of dignity the butterfly had, "Babe, babe! Don't step on it! It's dead..."
Adam stopped for a minute and looked at me puzzled. He matched my quietness and stopped jumping. Then he leaned down to get a closer look at the butterfly and began studying it. His inspection seemed harmless until he picked up a stick from the ground and started poking at the dead butterfly's body.
"EWWWWW! Gross!" he shouted.
I stopped him from assaulting the butterfly any further; "You're EWWW! Gross!", I said to him, laughing at his reaction. Luckily for the butterfly, Adam's school bus pulled up and saved the butterfly from mutilation.

After I got him on the bus I walked back to the dead butterfly and leaned down to study it for myself. It appeared to be in perfect health, so I couldn't imagine why it just died. There had to be a reason, right? Whatever the reason was, it was unseen to me.

There are lots of things we don't see that affect life and death on earth, I suppose.

I picked up the butterfly and moved it closer to the fence line so no one would step on it. Then I trekked my way up the stairs, back inside the house. I closed the door behind me and locked it. Then I walked over to the kitchen table and sat down. From the kitchen window, I looked down into the yard and started to think about having to explain life and death to Adam one day. He's getting older (speaking of which, his birthday is coming up on October 7th), questioning anything and everything he sees these days.

How would I explain it? What would I say about it? And how would it affect his perceptions?

I made a mental note of the butterfly's death. I thought re-telling the experience would help when I had to explain to Adam that life and death were a little more than just, "EWWW! Gross!"

with a long sigh let the hissing in

stones deformed by gentle kissing

all the closed eyes start to glisten

but it feels like someone's missing
-- Someone's Missing / MGMT

Since I was already at the kitchen table, I decided to have a bowl of Lucky Charms to start the day. While I was eating, I saw the mailman from the kitchen window. He was putting mail in our box and I and remembered that when my mom called earlier in the week, she said she mailed us something. She made a big deal about it, making it sound like something epic. I finished the cereal and walked outside to see if her mail made it yet.

I opened the box and found a letter from my mom. Usually I rip open mail that's addressed to me, immediately. I didn't with her letter though. I wasn't sure what would be inside of it. With my mother, there's no telling. I thought maybe it was a letter that would offer advice or guide me some during our transition into our new lives, apart. What could she possibly have to say, in a handwritten letter, no less?

When she called days before, I shared with her my anxieties in starting over. I confessed to her how much I loved being with Adam again full-time; how he seemed to be enjoying school and life at home with me. I told her that we loved her and missed her tremendously, despite the fact that she and I fought most of the time.

(Yesterday night...)
LIZ: I can't believe mom called just to check on us the other day. That's weird. She never does that.
PATRICK: (Laughing) She didn't call to check on us. She doesn't care about us. (Laughs again) She thinks we're abusing and neglecting your son, depriving him of having Mc Donald's every day.

Once I got up the stairs and back inside the house, I tore open the envelope.