for those who would rescue cows, a letter from a fan

dear little girls,

first let me say it was wonderful to spend the afternoon with you yesterday. you probably don't remember the first time we met, not long after you both had just started breathing air. i had never in my life seen human beings as small as you and most of me was afraid to even be close to such smallness. you looked as if any slight touch could stop you from being and your parents had gone through a great deal just to get you to be at all and i did not want to mess things up. but your mom ran her hand over each soft forehead and said i could, too, and i'm glad i did. you were fuzzy then, peachlike. you looked imaginary somehow. i think maybe until you both got home from the hospital your mom and your dad worried some days maybe you were imaginary. but then when you got home i remember they realized really fast that you weren't. you tested them a little bit as i recall just to make sure they were really good at being parents. and it looks to me like once you figured out they were you relaxed that testing and settled into the work of being glorious little girls with magnificent ponytails perched on top of some very creative brains.

and we have seen each other from time to time since then but you were always small still, not quite sure what to do with people who weren't all the time in your life. so that's why i'm so glad we had tea yesterday and watched all that rain go everywhere outside and read green eggs and ham. that is a mighty fine book, by the way. i don't know if you know about the guy who wrote it but he was a smart and brave and passionate man and also a little sad, but i think it gave him some sort of joy to write books like the ones he wrote and then know someday children like you would read them and think interesting things. i think he admired the same things i admire and i thought you should know some of those things include the ability to leap off a table and land with elegance and fierceness and also the ability to share animals in a sailboat even when you're not really sure that's what you want to do. and loving books. i guess that's one of those things that in some households just goes without saying. books are like water or air. if you like books now your whole life will be more beautiful than it would have been otherwise. you will live in so many worlds some days you might get a little dizzy. but that's okay, too.

because i know how you feel about rescuing baby cows from tornado-related tree strandings i wanted to tell you about the giant cow over in andes. that's andes, new york. not andes, andes. some days we drive up the side of the mountain for sunday breakfast and before we get very far, when the land is still mostly flat near the river, we drive by a house all animaled with farm creatures. there are chickens scattered all over the yard and a few goats milling about. but on some days, the best days i guess, there is a black and white cow standing around. just standing. but what i think you would both like about this cow is that it is the giantest cow i have ever seen. now, i'm not saying i'm an expert on the situation, but i did grow up in a town full of cows and, as i mentioned yesterday, i have ridden a cow or two. and i have never seen a cow so big, not even on t.v. that cow just stands there. and i don't know that it needs rescuing. i think the people it lives with keep it from getting caught up in trees just fine, but i am pretty sure it gets bored sometimes with all those chickens underfoot. so i was thinking that when you come to visit we could drive up on the way to sunday breakfast and maybe wave to that giant cow. i don't think cows wave back, but i think we'll be able to tell it likes us.

love,
me