fatherly advice

Dear Anna,

You said when I am “a little less busy” that you’d welcome some help with your graduation speech. It’s like your last homework assignment, some algebraic story problem and term paper and ballet recital all rolled into one. Or at least it might seem that way. It’s a big deal for you, I know, but, for me, it was the “when you are a little less busy” part that kicked me in the gut. When will I be a little less busy? I don’t know how to answer this, and also it doesn’t matter. There’s a better question, really: When can I find ways to sort it all out and be there for you?

I want you to know this Truth: I strive to be there for you (and your mom and your sister) before all other things. Sometimes I have to mow the lawn; sometimes there’s work; sometimes I’m just kicking rocks in my own way; sometimes I need to just take care of myself. I finally went to the doctor after 6 years between wellness exams. But I hope that the fact that I still haven’t fixed the bathroom fan is some evidence that other, higher priority things have come first.

What follows here is more advice than I have any right to give. I should be heeding advice rather than dispensing it. And, I need to tell you here and now that you are swimming in depths where I can’t touch bottom anymore, and maybe that’s why it struck me so hard to think I could help once it’s “a little less busy,” because it’s not a matter of being a little less busy but really how much longer do I still have capacity to give you, of all people, advice. I’ll write this as quickly as I can, while I can still offer something that you don’t already know better than I do, evidenced by your understanding of topics like whales or the Constitution or “third position” in ballet.

You’re working on this speech and you wonder if it will be right, if it will be good enough. This is the question, and you’ll continue to have it. It’s what we all ask ourselves, for better or worse, regarding all things and for all time. You need to know that admission that I’m betraying for all of us, everyone you’ll ever meet. It isn’t the last time you’ll be asking others or the ether if it (whatever “it” is) is “good enough.” Speeches, interviews, long distance runs, performances, first days, last days, parenthood, teaching, raising goldfish — these all and so many more beg the question. The reason it stops you in your tracks is not because of the task itself, but because each time we wonder if some thing is good enough, what we’re really asking is “am I good enough?” This is a question with a lot of baggage. The simple act of asking it stops lots of us before we do anything. (Maybe this is the real reason I haven’t fixed the bathroom fan, actually.)

Anna, you need to know that the answer to this question is and will ever always be this:

You’re extraordinary. And, so is everyone else.

But you are extraordinary in your own way. This is not what you need to tell everyone in a speech or in any other venue, but it’s what you need to remember as you give yourself to the world, in your speech and ever after. You are you, and you should be and celebrate that. “You” are why you are here. Don’t hesitate; don’t apologize; be confident in your own state of being.

When I first started teaching, I got a lot of advice and research basis to tell me what I should be like in a classroom. The very best advice, though, was to be the best teacher that I could be, as myself and true to that self and what I stand for. I’ve come to realize that this isn’t just a good idea, it’s absolutely essential. And I think—now that I’m older and more experienced and have a sense for all the mistakes and misguided meanders I know how to take—that this isn’t just advice for teaching. This is a good rule for being. You must be the best you that you know. Pull your hair back or let it fall across your shoulders, but after making these adjustments for the task at hand (graduation speech, dance, voter registration drives, dodge ball, etc.) just put yourself, as you are, forward. Lean in, speak out, and let it come from your core.

There are lots of ways to be and celebrate you and who you are. There are days when I think that such advice is simply a good way to justify sequestering myself into a comfortable chair and never facing the outside world. And some days that’s exactly what I do. But at some point this is dissatisfying. It doesn’t connect you with the larger world, and you miss out on an exchange with humanity—and, frankly, humanity needs you and your generation. Also, I think that this sequestering is pretty much what the Unabomber did, and I don’t believe his was a good example.

Instead, you should find joy. Remember that feeling you had when you played with the symphony? The look you have with a backpack on the trail? The celebration of lifting up en pointe? The joy of sharing a book with a child? These are the things. Be the person that embraces these and strives for those interactions. Do not listen to the cynics and the assholes who will strive to “succeed,” to “accomplish,” to list on pieces of paper things that have been done. Simply strive to possess your joy while looking out for the well-being of others. But most of all, be you. This is why you’re here. It’s why we brought you into this world.

This, Dear Daughter, is how I would have you write your speech. Make it yours and embrace it like you embrace a soft blanket. Cherish it as you, and do not worry about what others take from it. Because I promise you that it does not matter. What is genuine to you is what others will embrace along with you. What is “you” is what is important, and it is what you have to give.

As I write out the advice I wanted to give you and as I think about my own questions about time, having enough of it and spending it wisely, I realize that what I give you and the advice I should heed is all the same. Watching you on your trajectory, being there with you, and getting to help where I can is exactly where I find my own joy. There will never be enough time. So I’m glad that I get to spend moments backing you up on your journeys or even watching them from afar, those before and those yet to come, but most especially those in the ever present. Thank you for sharing these with me.

Love,
Dad