There are two shorter ones that are about two little girls that
are daughters one of my oldest friends from college--
Sandra [INAUDIBLE]---- who lives in Maine.
And one of them is named Lydia.
She has Asperger's syndrome.
And she's a savant.
When she was six, I'd come to visit.
And she'd say, would you like to see
the timeline of the human race that I have on the stairs
up to my room?
And she's reading Greek and Latin and Homer.
She's reading Homer and Shakespeare,
but she couldn't get along--
of course, how would you get along with children
your own age?
What would you talk about?
But she did all the other children things.
Like, I did this.
I was reading the Iliad when I was eight,
and I was reading comic books.
And I considered the Iliad an improved comic book
without pictures.
It didn't need them.
It was pretty vivid.
And I think maybe I have that syndrome too.
But anyway-- no, she has--
we're very worried about--
well, the thing was, she turned 12.
And as everyone knows--
well, first of all, like Freud said,
there's this moment in the life of children
between the ages of 11 and 13 when the light goes away,
you know?
Everyone knows that, right?
Some people, few people, keep it.
But it goes away, and it's one of the most terrible things
in the world.
But this other thing happens.
Like, we would go up twice a year.
From one visit to the next, her body changed.
And it was kind of weird.
And we laughed.
We talked about it and laughed.
But the thing is, I've known many women who've
told me that when this happened to them--
one woman actually said it destroyed her childhood.
You know, men looked at her.
She didn't know why.
And she didn't understand what's happening to her.
She was an extreme case.
But, Lydia, on the contrary was delighted.
She was absolutely delighted.
She just talked about it and wanted to talk about it.
And then, OK, it was weird.
I kept trying not to look at her, you know?
And, so, it's called, "I Don't Know How to Tell You This."
"It is so strange.
1 minute I'm in the city, and the next I'm
on the dirt road in Maine walking in the early summer
woods beside a little girl I love
and gazing off in the direction of some music I
remember hearing years ago at this very spot.
A phrase of spare piano music played very slowly over
and over again, coming from a place in the dense trees
where no house is.
And when I turned to look at her once more,
she has become a beautiful young woman--
a disturbingly beautiful young woman, if still somewhat short.
And I am old.
I look at my hand, and it is an old man's.
How will I ever explain this to people?
But then the problem may never arise.
I stop a minute, look around.
Who says I will be coming back?
I watch her going on ahead.
Does she seem bewildered, tongue tied?
Nothing of the kind.
Has her face become preoccupied, troubled, the light
around her disappeared?
Not in the least.
Does she skip, twirl, or laugh no more?
On the contrary.
Is she halt with self-consciousness?
Has embarrassment or sadness overshadowed her?
Not yet.
It is as if she were six again and had just received
a new dress she adored and delighted.
So delighted in that she'd secretly vowed, within earshot
of everyone, never to take it off again,
not under any circumstances, waking or sleeping, never ever.
Now, she is telling us--" this is true--
"now she is telling me about a dream she had.
She said she met a girl who was her except this girl was
so thin she appeared to be starving,
and she had the greenest hair.
Then it occurred to her to ask the girl if she was dreaming.
No, the girl answered before she could speak.
Actually, I think you're awake."