Saturday, April 1, 2023
[Post-editorial note: Well, this is embarrassingly late.]
Dear Family,
April Fools! This letter is coming out late. Betcha thought I was going to write this earlier, didn’t you?
So did I. So I guess the real April Fool is me.
I don’t know exactly when this will actually be posted, since I’ll need Dad’s help with that, and he has abandoned me to go to France with Mom and Grace for all of spring break. They flew out last night, and I’m sure you’ll get to hear about their fun adventures in the next installment of the Famlet. Until then, enjoy this account of my March.
Work
I think I might institute a new recurring segment of sorts—the Kid Quote of the Month. Here’s the first installment:
“My family is going to adopt a baby! ‘Cause when I was born, I was (holds fingers a centimeter apart) thiiiiis tiny, because my mom isn’t good at making babies.”
—codename Geo, kindergarten, 03/01/2023
No one else seems to find this nearly as funny as I do, but maybe if I use this letter to cast my net a little wider, I’ll make someone laugh almost as hard as I had to hold my own laughter in.
One characteristic of mine that upholds neurodivergent stereotypes is my tendency to analyze normal human behavior with a sort of scientific fascination. On the outside, I’m carrying on a conversation with Geo about how exciting it is that she’s getting a new baby sibling. But on the inside, my brain is in full research mode, running calculations, clinically looking over what she just said from all angles. Surely, she was paraphrasing an explanation an adult had given her in kid-friendly terms. But had this adult really said “your mom isn’t good at making babies” verbatim? Or was Geo paraphrasing? That train of thought makes its way to my child development textbook, and before I know it, my internal monologue resembles what I hear when I imagine Sheldon Cooper. (I’ve never actually watched an episode of The Big Bang Theory, but my parents like it, so I’ve learned a few things through figurative osmosis.)
This concludes this installment of Kid Quote of the Month. I must admit, that went on longer than anticipated, and I definitely wasn’t expecting it to go in that direction.
It just occurred to me that most of you don’t really know what my average work day looks like, so here’s the bare bones: I arrive a little before 7:00am to make sure everything’s set up before we open. The kids gradually trickle in and participate in unorganized play. Around eight, a counselor or two will announce that the gym is open to whichever kids wish to run around and play more active games. Play stops and cleanup begins around 8:35, and once all the toys and craft supplies are in their respective closets, someone will lead the kids in a group game until they’re dismissed to class.
Afternoons are more structured. I’ll try not to bore you with too many details, but basically, there’s attendance time, snack time, outside time, and everything else time. That last one is when a counselor will lead the day’s planned activity—usually a craft project—for whatever kids choose to participate, while everyone who doesn’t goes to the gym or plays in the all-purpose room at leisure.
Two days a week, the aforementioned “everything else time” is designated to clubs. Each kid will get to choose to participate in one of four clubs, which change every month. This month’s clubs were March Madness, yoga, card games, and Lucky Leprechauns (aka, Saint Patrick’s Day-themed activities). I was one of the three designated to plan for and lead the Lucky Leprechauns club. Some of the things we had the kids make were leprechaun traps, rainbow paper chains with pots of gold at the end, mini leprechaun hats, and art made with real pressed clovers—which actually provides a nice segue into the next section of this letter!
Hobbies
I press plants now! It’s fun! I love it! I’ve been periodically going out into the woods and gathering flowers. (Don’t worry—I follow the one-in-twenty rule to be sure I’m not taking too many from any one place, so I’ll often go for a six-mile walk and come home with no more than three daffodils and perhaps a snowdrop.) Then I use a microwave flower press I got on sale at Michael’s for nine dollars, because I’m too impatient to leave them under a stack of books for weeks, and there’s nowhere in our house (or the state of Maryland, for that matter) that is dry enough to be ideal pressing conditions. I’m planning to start a scrapbook with a page or two of plants for each month. I haven’t glued anything down yet, but here’s an idea of what I’m working with:
Some of them came out more wrinkled than others; I’m not sure why. And, as you can see from the gaps on the page, the composition isn’t final. But one thing’s certain: this is the one that’s going to cure my mental illnesses. I just know it.
I’m sure more stuff happened within the past month, but my brain has been strangely foggy lately. I should go back to journaling more regularly to combat that.
Since the aforementioned brain fog has rendered this letter significantly shorter than my previous one, I think I’ll take this opportunity to share the introductory explanation that I neglected to include last month, regarding my reasoning behind writing and sharing these letters:
I’ve heard that historians find much value in the journals of ancient nobodies—that is to say, ordinary people of little lasting significance on a worldwide scale. Apparently, these provide worthwhile records of everyday activities, the knowledge of which would otherwise have been completely lost to time. I have a deep, abiding love for humanity that only grows when I learn about little things like ancient graffiti that, when translated from Latin or whatever dead language, would not look out of place in a middle school bathroom stall. Some things never change, it seems, and I love it.
I wonder if, in a few centuries, people will find early twenty-first century journals as rare and valuable as today’s historians view their artifacts. With everyone documenting their lives on social media, there will be so much noise to sort through. But most of that is, frankly, inauthentic. If future generations are left with only Instagram and Twitter to judge us by, they will think that we all lived idyllic, picturesque lives, taking occasional breaks to become outraged enough to type long rants on current events which we then put no effort into actually solving.
I sincerely doubt this record will last long enough for any of that to matter. And even if it does, I don’t think any future historian will care much for my messy ramblings. But on the off chance that you’re reading this in the twenty-fifth century, there are three things I want to make perfectly clear:
One, I’m not writing this for you, Mx. Historian. I’m writing this for my family, my friends, and for myself.
Two, putting all of what I just said aside, I hope you find something worthwhile in here.
And three, I hope you’re having a nice day.
Okay, I’m getting distracted from the topic at hand, which is the real reason I’m writing this. I want to find some eloquent way of explaining it, but my dad beat me to it with the gems he hid in the archive page of this website:
“…I wish to convey to my posterity my fervent belief in the importance of writing — of capturing the seemingly inconsequential and otherwise forgettable happenings of your life. Sentences and paragraphs lend meaning to these little events in ways pictures alone cannot. Photo albums help you remember what you used to look like. Writing, even the most inane musings, creates a photo album of your soul. It will help you remember what you used to think about, experience and feel. And I think you will ultimately find it more interesting and fulfilling to remember what you used to look like on the inside than on the outside. I hope that exposing my warts in this way helps you understand that just as you don’t need to be Ansel Adams to take a selfie, you don’t need to be Ernest Hemingway to write your story.”
I have a terrible memory—a characteristic that, if I’m being completely honest, scares me a little. I don’t want to forget what I did last year. More importantly, I don’t want to forget who I was last year. So I’m writing for me, and now you can read it too, I guess.
I’m glad you are.
Love,
Ari
Official dragon tamer of The Famlet Monthly