To Grace - May You Always Indulge in Eccentricities

To My Niece:

Gracie, I saw this picture of you reading in your parents' closet the other day, and I wanted to tell you how much I loved it.

I love it because it reminds me so much of when I was a child and I loved two things: playing in closets and reading.

I'm glad to know you're finding joy in the same things.

Gracie, I know you're so little right now that you don't even recognize the singular beat you walk to, but I want you to know I love it all the same.

Perhaps I'm putting too much of me into my idea of you, but I can't seem to help it - not many other children would have the ingenuity to realize that a walk-in closet is the perfect light to read by, when you can't reach other lights to turn them on, but you really want a light to read by. I feel a kindred spirit in you.

So kindred spirit Gracie, I hope you enjoy all the eccentricities of childhood that I enjoyed.

I hope you let your imagination create more than just a reading spot in closets. I hope you build worlds. I always turned my closet into an office - I was a fabulous secretary.

I hope you find absolute joy in warm, windy days. I loved taking blankets outside and getting wrapped completely in them, cocooning myself from the breeze, letting my face feel the strong winds rush past. I loved the sound of the leaves rustling together in the Fall.

I hope you talk to yourself. I hope you have as much fun playing on your own as you do with others. I found this balanced me and kept me quite happy at almost every moment growing up. I found that it does that still - though the idea that I'm not crazy has recently become a harder sell to people when they see me talking to myself at work...

I hope you explore the world around you. Maybe start with your backyard. I built rooms for a house in the cattails at the edge of our yard. And sometimes I followed the tiny stream beyond the cattails, past our neighbors houses, thinking I was a brave explorer, perhaps about to glimpse the tail of a crocodile or spot the
glint of a tiger's eyes as it waited in the thick of the weeds.

I hope you always love reading - and that you create your own stories. I used to write stories on our old computer when I was little; the computer was a new thing in our home and a novelty that I enjoyed playing with. I wish I had been better at keeping those little stories. I'd love to think up stories now with the same freedom of thought and creativity as I did when I was younger. I hope you take advantage of that.

I hope you love playing dress up - and I hope you let your mom document your many outfits. Some of my favorites pictures are where I'm in my Cinderella dress, or wearing some crazy assortment of neon-colored clothing, or trying on Mr. Potato Head's glasses. I like being able to look back and remember that I had fun being a little ridiculous.

I hope you dance around your room with all the energy you have. I always loved dancing to loud music in my bedroom. If I'm being honest, I still love dancing around my bedroom.

Gracie, most of all, I hope you genuinely smile as much as you possibly can. I hope you enjoy the things you do all the time. I hope you keep trying new things with little regard for failure. I hope you help your sisters hear the beat of that drum in your head, so that they can live in the moment like you seem to.

I hope you always find the greatest satisfaction in the smallest of things, like being able to read a book by the glow of a walk-in closet's light.