"I Guess That's Where My Heart Is"

     I awoke this morning to the headline, "Maurice Sendak dies at 83." Only a week ago I watched the documentary, "Tell Them Anything You Want" all about him.
   Unsurprisingly, I have since immersed myself in his books, his drawings and his life.  I ordered A Hole is To Dig and Higglety Pigglety Pop, listened to all I could on NPR, and even drew a few pictures of his in my journal and wrote about him.
     He is an interesting, creative, soft-hearted man. He loved his little dog and drew pictures in each of his books of her while she was living. (I was so touched by this and thought it was so kind of him. In a story by Annie Proulx she described a man by saying, "For he loved a little dog" and this reminded me  of Sendak.)
     He loved his brother and sister; adored them, called his brother the genius. They loved him and were  always very good to him. He and his brother made adorable, colorful, wooden toys of nursery rhymes, which he still has.
     The only true happiness he has really enjoyed in his life has been drawing, writing and creating his books.  "All weaknesses and blemishes of personality fade away doing the one thing you want and in knowing you do it well."  "But, he says, it is an isolationist form of life."
     He asked, "Do you always want what you think you want?" He also asked, "How do you explain that you love somebody or something?"
     He had a picture of Ursula Nordstrom when she was young (I was surprised at how beautiful she was. I had only seen pictures of her when she was older. She is someone I loved reading about in the book  Dear Genius, which is a collection of her letters to the authors she helped, supported, encouraged, and edited. She was Sendak's editor, Laura Ingalls Wilders', E.B. White's, Margaret Wise Brown's, Charolotte Zolotow's, Arnold Lobel's, Shel Silverstein's and many others. She was clever, wise, kind, and appreciated and recognized talent. She knew how to handle temperamental artists, and artists who never answered their phones. When  asked what qualified her as a non librarian, non teacher, non parent, and non college graduate to publish children's books, she poignantly answered, "Well, I am a former child, and I haven't forgotten a thing.")
     Maurice Sendak reads Dickens for an hour each night and also listens to Mozart.  He asked, "Why is My Needle Stuck in Childhood? And later in the documentary, at the end, he answers his own question by saying, "I guess that's where my Heart Is."
    I don't know why but I have had several times in my life when I am suddenly intensely interested in an author, and I study their work and their life, only to find out a few days after doing so that they have died.
   Today I find myself wondering what it is or why does the universe seem to call out to you in some way asking- beckoning you to take notice of and appreciate someone before they disappear.
 I have no answer to this question but I am grateful I watched this documentary and thought about this man and his talents before he was gone.  "And he sailed off through night and day and in and out of weeks and almost over a year to where the wild things are."