March 28, 2023
Dear Leland and Everett,
I keep imagining that I will start writing these letters from a position of strength, of confidence, of knowing what I want to say and how. Instead, I find that I keep getting pulled back into vulnerability, confusion, and discomfort. Early in this writing process (I think it was the second letter), I decided to lean into the discomfort whenever I encountered it; on some level I understood that the discomfort represented something to explore and express. I very much need practice experiencing discomfort, so these letters give me said practice. And the discomfort, I am starting to believe, is where truth and beauty and art reside.
So today I am sitting down to write, for the first time, without a plan. I didn’t even plan to write today. I arrived at the gym when I suddenly felt a desire to write; I left without working out. So now here I am, writing for the first time in a couple weeks, after several weeks of daily practice.
Why the gap in letters? Oh, that’s a bit of a tale. First, the power went out. We had a storm with terrible winds; countless branches and trees were knocked over. We’ve seen demolished fences, damaged roofs, enormous branches broken off trees, and even countless whole trees toppled over. Beautiful, large, otherwise healthy trees uprooted by the dozens. We’re seeing these trees cut up and left by the side of the road for pickup: the tree rings are beautiful, supple, and vibrant; I somehow find it both heartbreaking and invigorating that these trees fell over.
Unsurprisingly, all those fallen trees and branches created countless power outages. Our power company, to their great credit, worked overtime to get power restored, but there were so many power outages. Our power was out for about two and a half days.
Your mom and I hated the power outages. We stressed out over the impact it was having on us, and were particularly angry about the fact that our solar panels weren’t working as advertised (they weren’t powering our home in the days after the outage, despite ample sunny weather, due to a technical malfunction). The two of you reminded me daily what was important. While you were certainly disappointed that you weren’t able to do certain favored activities (like watching an occasional video before bedtime), overall you enjoyed the experience. You enjoyed doing puzzles with your mom by flashlight at dusk. You squealed with delight when your mom rinsed you off in the shower with cold water. You cheerfully went to bed when the sun went down, despite it being earlier than your normal bedtimes. Overall you treated the inconvenience as an adventure, and reminded me (as you often do) what really matters.
I could have found a coffee shop, or some other location with power, in order to write during those days. Instead, I made an observation: I was feeling pressure to write daily, to exercise daily, to keep my daily routine. I realized that in some ways I was just repurposing job pressure into my new job, which I defined as self care in the form of a daily exercise, meditation, and writing routing. I still aspire to exercise, meditate, and write as often as possible, but I also needed to let go of the pressure and anxiety to complete daily tasks and achieve some imaginary threshold of targeted daily “productivity”. And so, I took those days off.
After the power came back, I found my energy drawing me toward my ‘to do list’. Mundane activities like taxes, home repairs, paying bills, and other administrivia, which I had deprioritized in favor of self care, now drew me in.
Oh, and the indigestion. I’ve struggled pretty badly with what my doctor labeled gastritis the last couple weeks. Stomach issues are remarkably debilitating: they sap you of energy and they trigger anxiety and fear. Eating is uncomfortable. Sleeping is challenging. Exercising is unpleasant. My doctor says I can take medication to help the healing process; so far I’ve pursued natural solutions like fasting, careful eating, acupuncture, and ample rest.
One day last week I decided to take a ‘sick day’. Put differently, I gave myself permission to goof off for a day while I fasted, rested, and tried to heal. I read and I napped, but mostly I just watched copious amounts of television. It was gluttonous, wasteful, and utterly glorious. Glorious because I gave myself permission to ‘waste’ some time. Your mom and I have lived for several years under relatively constant pressure to optimize our time. The only way to do our jobs, take care of you two, and keep our lives running was to ruthlessly optimize our time. We’ve optimized, optimized, and optimized. It’s worked, but it’s honestly been pretty soul-crushing. We just haven’t made enough time for play, for curiosity, for indulging whimsy. So my ‘sick day’ (which turned into two days, BTW) served to remind me that this time off is meant to allow me to rebalance my life, which partly means overindulging in play, curiosity, and whimsy. And some days that may mean skipping a workout or writing or meditating, because these are not the only forms of self care that need attention.
Something strange happened along the way: while watching television, during a mildly sad scene, I broke down crying. Huge, heaving, guffawing sobs. I cried for several minutes. I cried more later, and again the next day. I still don’t know why. Maybe it doesn’t matter. Whatever it was, something clearly needed to come out, and the crying ultimately felt cathartic. I am starting to believe that sadness and love are both felt in the heart, and that you have to feel the sadness in order to let it go and make space for your heart to feel love. So I’m hopeful the crying was therapeutic in its own way.
What does it all mean? Honestly, I don’t know. And that’s the hardest thing to admit to my kids. Your dad is making it up as I go, just like you are. Fortunately I know enough to guide the two of you through childhood. I’d like to believe that I’ll learn enough by then to help guide the two of you through adulthood. The reality, however, is that you two will need to guide yourselves. You will, once again, be making it up as you go, only in adulthood you’ll learn that you have to do it yourselves, without teachers and parents there to shepherd you. We can support and offer advice, but everyone is on their own Hero’s Journey, and part of the Hero’s Journey is recognizing that it’s uniquely yours, and that no one can take it but you. More than hoping to guide you through your journey, I hope to teach you to take control of your own Hero’s Journey younger than I did.
I love you,
Dad
Letters to Leland 