My digital letter to you
I read this morning about children growing up with digital games and then spoke with Tete over Skype who had just gotten a new cellphone but was unsure how to work it although she was delighted to have it. The other day a colleague of mine wrote about introducing me to someone who is moving to New Orleans and for some reason what sprang to mind is a decade ago when I was covering a lot of reports solo, I had gone into the office and printed out copious analyst reports to read much to her horror. She is a paperless person. And I sadly, am still a Luddite.
On the cruise I saw many people using Kindles and I thought interesting because you don’t have to lug books (I had three in my suitcase), you don’t have to lug magazines (I had three in my suitcase) and you could read it under the glaring sun. Still, I don’t want a digital book – I love the feel of paper, the smell of books, and my eyes have gone bad after decades of staring at a computer screen. I should write a book – not Born to Run about our natural ability to run, but born to look at words on paper.
I thought about all this because I had asked someone to make a physical book from my blog a while back and I was thinking about it again. I want to give it to Tin so he will know who I am because I was thinking as I walked both dogs this morning I would like him to have his feet on the ground like me, his Mommy, and his head in the clouds, like Tatjana, his Mama. And I wish him a free spirit like Mimi, my mother, and that he develop his musical talent like Papa, my father. I would love for him to go out into the world with curiosity like Tete, Tatjana’s mother, and to love life like Tatjana’s father.
Most importantly, I thought about what a recent guest told us much to my dismay – that her sister had been adopted when she was nine months old and she was never right. Good grief. I would like Tin to know should I pass before I had the chance to tell him some things. The first thing I would tell him is what my mother told me, “I thank God every day for you.” Then I’d say to forgive your biological mother for putting you up for adoption because she did not have a lot of choices in her life. She was raised in foster homes and had three children before she was 20 and she was poor, uneducated and had no one to support and help her make good choices. I would say to be grateful for the biological great-aunt who woke up at midnight when you were eight months old and knew your situation required action and heard Jesus tell her in her sleep to go get you. And for her partner who looked all over the country to find us to be your parents even though we were 1,000 miles away.
I would say I found a lucky penny on the way around the bayou coming out of City Park this morning while walking Loca and Heidi and threw it in the bayou and wished you grow up healthy and happy, know you are loved and know how to love, have conviction in your life and confidence to express it, have compassion for those who are suffering and have less than you, and enjoy every day of your life. I would remind you that when you were a child you loved books, and the feel of paper, the joy of words on the page, and the stories that lived there, long before the digital world took over.
April 23rd, 2011 at 10:09 am
A beautiful letter.