Dear Ellie and Maya,
Opps.
So I said I'd be documenting your childhood for posterity, but here we are 8 years later, and no letters. But don't worry! I have lots of great excuses that are partially true and which won't make you feel better about it!
As it turns out, when it comes to parenting, actually creating good memories and trying to build a good childhood for your kids invariably competes for the same time that is required to thoroughly document all of those good memories and good childhood experiences. And if I'm being completely honest, sometimes Earthly ambitions--- pursued with the pretext of being a good provider for our family--- played a part as well. But that didn't last for long. A plague came to our rescue. But we can talk about all of that, later.
For now, though, its summer and we've come back to Florida where we started: Grandma and Grandpa's house, the place you both spent your earliest years.
I feel like maybe that's one reason why I've started writing to you both again. There are so many little things that spur memories of when you were little. But aside from that, you are both now old enough that we have begun reading Letters to Ellie together. And old enough for you, Maya, to say "Hey! Where's Letters to Maya!" (Opps, again.)
I'm still grateful for those old letters, though. Over the past 8 years it has been a kind of script for your childhood, and an instruction manual for the kind of father I wanted to be. Your mother and I made a point to insure that many of the themes and characters of the letters intersected with your childhood, too. Treasure hunts with the Tomtens, a Curse by the Crimson Pumpkins, the Smith Family Haunted House, over the top holiday antics, little pranks we play on each other, and all manner of silly games that send laughter echoing through the house. And most important of all, a calm, happy home life.
At times, too, I would make mistakes, feel too proud to admit it to myself, and then remember the promises I'd made. Those aggravating, implausible, lofty promises... but which I knew I should try my best to keep. And so they often woke me up and brought me back to being the father I wanted to be.
You are now both old enough to understand all of the stories, too. It's surprising to see which ones you each take to the most. At the moment, you, Maya, ask for the stories in the evening the most often. You enjoy the mystical and ethereal ones. This summer, while we've been back, we've visited the bicycle in the tree with your sister and your cousin, Marianna. We've gone out at night and looked at its silhouette against the evening Twilight (it's still there 10 years after having written the story!), searched for clues, and grappled with strange events (like the engine of our van stalling, which I assure you wasn't just me kicking the transmission into neutral...) Then we'd go home to read the story of how it got there, and whether the curse of the bicycle in the tree might be coming for you, your sister, and cousin next. The story weighed most heavily on you and Marianna, while Ellie did everything in her power to provoke the Ghost of Adrianne Miller. At night, you'd all cram in to bed together for protection, and gaze out the family room window for signs of the rusty old bicycle.
You, Maya, also seem to love The Girl in the Sphere, which is entirely in keeping with your personality. Even at the youngest age, you were quiet and thoughtful. The type to gaze longingly out of windows or intently at some tiny crystal you found out by the firepit. You remind me of The Girl: finding contentment in contemplation of the world. But then I am afraid sometimes that I might be like The Sphere.
Meanwhile, Ellie, you seem to be drawn to the stories which are strange and otherworldly. Unexpectedly, at the moment, you are fascinated by the two short stories about Far Spirit and the Soul Kind. Stories about strange beings in another place that use the body parts of their deceased relatives as tools. I feel like you love the story not just because it shows how strange the creatures are, but that it also turns that feeling around to show us how strange and interesting we are as well. I've promised you that we'll finish writing Far Spirit and the Soul Kind, and because you are already becoming a writer yourself, the next one will be Part Three, by Dana and Ellie Smith.
And then there is The Clockmaker's Daughter. You know the story is about you, and so you seem to love it as well. And because you know that story cuts deep for me, you've at times taken advantage of this fact. Like at bedtime, when you want to stall me so you can stay up later, you'll sometimes melodramatically quote passages from the story: "Don't go Dad. 'Hold my hand and never let go'."
Well played, Ellie. Well played.
Unexpectedly again, perhaps the mutual favorite of you both is The Viking vs the Sandwich. It's wacky and whimsical and lyrical, yes, but it also has a historical setting, and most kids have a natural resentment of when parents try to sneak education into things that are fun. But as it turns out, you both have developed a love of history. Every time I give you two a choice between the Viking vs the Sandwich or anything else, you choose the Viking vs the Sandwich so that you can hear again the tale of Hamburg and the battle that took place between their champion--- The Sandwich--- and the evil Ungar the Stout.
The fact that we have begun reading the stories and letters together has made it seem like this moment is a bookend of the past 8 years. And a time to fill in the gaps for posterity, with new letters. And why shouldn't I? The past 8 years have been the very best of my life. It's unfolded the way one imagines a "happily ever after" would. I remember when I was writing the Clockmaker's Daughter, I felt that if I had just a tiny fraction of what I have now, I would be happy. And yet we have so much more than that, now. We have fun and whimsy and prosperity and, most importantly, each other.
I remember before you two were born, I used to think that the human brain was adapted to never actually feel any kind of permanent happiness. I thought that the idea of happiness existed as a sort of carrot that dangled in front of us to drive us forward, but which we were never meant to reach. A mirage on the horizon. I know now that this idea of mine was definitively, unambiguously, unequivocally false. Things turned out exactly how I wanted it to be, and I am happy. And yet I wonder about that phrase.
"How I wanted it to be."
Should everything turn out the way I wanted it to be? Should children be everything their fathers want them to be?
I remember in my very first letter, I telegraphed my fear that perhaps neither of you would like the things your mother and I do, or share our values. The irony now is that you are both almost exactly what we wanted. It's filled my heart with pride, but made me wonder whether it was fair, and whether--- by pouring my heart out about what I wanted our lives and your future to look like--- I was putting my thumb too heavily on the scale of your own self-discovery. Am I allowing you to be your own persons, or am I sculpting you into scripted characters in another one of my stories. Characters that exist not for themselves, but to make a point.
For instance Ellie, a few months back, I noticed you with the hard copy of all of our stories on the third floor. At the beginning was the first letter I wrote, A Father's Humble Wish. You'd been reading it on your own.
I remember in that first letter, I wrote:
It’s my sincerest hope that, one day, I will hand you a thumb drive filled with these letters. And then, I hope, you will browse through them casually and conclude that they are all very dull and tedious. I hope that you will sigh and roll your eyes and say, “Uggh, why does Dad always make me read all this stuff?” and then, to your mother and father's horror, you’ll go back to playing with Barbie Dolls, obsessing about boys, and slacking off in school.
Yeah, I know. There are many greater things that I could wish for you. I could wish that, like your mother and father, you might have an insatiable sense of curiosity. I could wish that you might love science and literature. That you might never grow tired of fun and play. That you might always search for excuses to be joyous. At this moment, though, it seems greedy to wish for much more than one simple thing: that you will live at least one more day. To wish for anything more than that seems like a lot to ask for.
At 10 now, all of the things I feared you'd be are not true at all, and all the things I hoped you would be have come true. Suspiciously true. At first, I thought this was just who you were, but over time, I began to wonder whether maybe you were eager to please me by following this script I had unintentionally written for you. That in all of these stories with their parables and morals and promises about how I wanted our lives to be, these stories and letters and family mythology which were meant to be about worlds to explore and whimsy and a joyous kind of freedom were instead each serving as a fence post to hem you in, and make you the way that I wanted you to be. When I saw you reading that first letter, you looked up at me with a clever little smile and said something to the effect of "Did you get more than your humble wish?"
I see this in you too, Maya, in the way that you take after you mother. How you have taken such an interest in Geology, and how your mother beams in pride at following in her footsteps.
Are we pressuring you both down this road? My impulse now is to say "this is not what I want for you," but that seems wrong, too, because in the end, what I want is for you to one day get what you want for yourselves. It is more important to me that you both be the best versions of yourselves rather than to be exactly like your mother and I, or want what we want. And yes, in the same way that I resemble your grandfather and grandmother (and am proud of it), I suspect you will be like your mother and I as well. But don't be afraid to venture out from the comforting shores of your parents' embrace if the vision we have for your lives do not match your own. I want these stories and letters and your childhood to be the fertile soil that nourishes your growth into a complete people, not the pot of a banzai plant, meant to twist and contort you to the vain whims of a grower.
My impulse now is to point to another one of our stories to illustrate this point--- The Man at the Edge of the World--- and its lesson about self determination and defining your own purpose in life. But see? I'm doing it again.
Just know that I will be proud of all the ways you do end up like your mother and I, but I will be just as proud when you write your own letters, write your own stories, and find your own purpose.
I love you both, and will write to you again soon.
