Dear Yai Yai — And Then You Were Six
Dear Yai Yai,
I didn’t get a chance to write this on your actual birthday because I was sick. Doesn’t that just bookend nicely with your birthday last year? No? Too soon? Yeah, I thought so too.
dear yai yai
#TBT – Election 2012
I wrote this as part of a series of essays to my daughter. First published on election day, 2012. Re-posting with only minor edits.
after the birth
Dear Yai Yai,
This has, without a doubt, been the craziest year of your life, at least from my perspective. That whole being born thing may have seemed crazier from yours.
Mini me
Dear Yai Yai,
Recently we have been discussing instinct. You want to know why animals do certain things, innate actions, evolutionary requirements. Your instinct right now is to believe what I tell you, to love what I love. After all, I have lived to the age of 33, so I must know something. Right now you want to emulate that. And I can’t deny that I love it.
In the in between
Dear Yai Yai,
You are always in an in between. There is what you were, and what you are going to become, and the now that is shaped by and shaping those. We all live in the in between, but at the age of four the recent past and near future are so fluid and so open that the now seems like a constant adventure. The past may seem like a solid, but because you are learning so much about the world at every turn, it reforms itself, gives new meaning to past events that you were too young to process.
Loose Parts
Dear Yai Yai,
Every year as the first flowers start to bloom and our cars turn uniformly yellow I survey my back yard. I am considering the usual suspects. Which plants have become invasive? Do I have room for another garden bed? This year, beyond the plans for pruning and tomatoes, there was another idea forming; what will make you the master of your outdoor domain? Plastic playhouses and kiddie pools are fun, but when the plastic pool turns into an ocean and leaves of an Elephant-Ear plant become mermaid tails, that is how magic happens.
Election 2012
Dear YaiYai,
This is your first presidential election. You probably aren’t old enough to remember anything about it, though you do know how to say “Obama.” But then again, you also seem to think going to vote has something to do with going on a boat.