We matter

I'm on a John Green kick -- reading Paper Towns now, and just finished An Abundance of Katherines. As a memoirist, this passage, from the end of the book, absolutely slayed me. It's just brimming with the kind of hope a writer needs to keep writing:

"Maybe stories don't just make us matter to each other; maybe they are also the only way to the infinite mattering he'd been after for so long ... Telling it changes other people just the slightest little bit, just as living the story changes me -- an infinitesimal change -- and that infinitesimal change ripples outward, ever smaller but everlasting. I will get forgotten but the stories will last. And so we all matter, maybe less than a lot but always more than none."

--An Abundance of Katherines, John Green

Love letter

Primo has started writing words. For David and I, two writers, this is about the most thrilling development since he started talking. So he's been coming home from Kindergarten with these letters he composes during "Writers Workshop." At his school, they have this policy about not correcting the kids' spelling and just encouraging them to sound stuff out themselves, which will explain why the letter I am about to share with you has such . . . unconventional . . . spelling. You should know too that Primo is a huge fan of the letter Q, in lieu of the leter C. So, "qat" and "qar."It kind of makes it seem like he's speaking a language much more exotic that plain old English.

In point of fact, what makes the letter difficult to read is not so much the spelling but the lack of spaces between words. Youdontrealizehowimportantspacingisuntilitsmissing. But I don't mind. It worked for James Joyce.

So here is my letter, which he wrote all by himself:
And it reads:

Mommy,

I love you and I hope that we will (something something) Christmas.

Primo

My baby wrote me a letter. Its been making me smile all day. My baby wrote me a letter.

PS. Anyone who can decipher wha words lie between will ("wl") and Christmas ("Qaestmeas") gets a prize. Of course I'll have to rely on Primo as the judge since he's the only one who knows the real answer, but I'm sure he'll be fair. He's five after all.