I wrote a letter to my granddaughter.
And it took me a week. I wanted the letter to be perfect. I thought it should be filled with lessons and wisdom. I pictured her as a teenager, sitting on the corner of her pink canopy bed and clutching a stack of annual birthday letters from Gigi.
So, no pressure … and talk about writer’s block!
The first version of my letter started with the last line of Mary Oliver’s poem, The Summer Day: “Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”
Obviously, that was too much. She had just turned one; she was not going off to college.
I want to be a person who writes letters. I love receiving letters. There is something about a handwritten letter that says I love you. I also felt those old feelings creeping back in—the fear and worry of talking, but not really saying anything. Our son and granddaughter live across the country. We will not be together very often. The six-hour flight home gave me plenty of time to convince myself I hadn’t said anything meaningful.
Fueled by the Latin phrase Verba volant, scripta manent (“Spoken words fly away, written words remain”), I started to write.
The final version of my letter to my granddaughter began something like, “You won’t remember this, so I am writing it down for us.” My annual birthday letter would be more of a future conversation that we’ll have.
I told her how excited her Gigi and Pop Pop were to fly across the country for her first birthday party, and that I had packed special decorations in my suitcase. The theme was “Bubbles and Blueberries,” two of her favorite things. I found a little white dress with printed blueberries on it for her to wear, and we covered the top of her smash cake with fresh blueberries and the largest #1 candle we could find. She didn’t smash the cake or get icing in her hair like most babies do. She carefully removed each blueberry with her little fingers and put them into her mouth one at a time.
I told her that her dad had spent hours finding the perfect birthday gifts. One of her favorites was a riding toy with a horn that played music and a secret compartment under the seat for her treasures. Her little legs weren’t quite long enough to reach the floor when she was sitting on it, so she pushed it around the room instead. She also loved the stuffed doggie, which had a purple controller and wire to make it walk and bark. Once she had the controller in her hand, she didn’t want to let it go. We named the doggie Blue and tucked it next to her in her stroller when it was time to go home.
Our precious little girl was not fussy or giggly. She was very curious and thoughtful in an unfamiliar party room with grandparents she may not have recognized.
It wasn’t Emily Dickinson. It wasn’t even particularly eloquent. She won’t remember being one year old, but I will. And now there’s a letter, just in case someday neither of us does.
The way I did it. A letter for later.
This is part of what I’m calling Expeditionvision—my quest to find what a meaningful life looks like. One experiment per week: Possible strategies for a happier life. Trying things on purpose and paying attention to what happens. I’m not offering advice or giving instructions. I’m just sharing the way I did it. If there’s something that you’ve been wanting to try—but haven’t—I’d love to hear about it. I’m open to reader suggestions for future experiments.
Field Notes: For Paid Subscribers
Paid subscribers, I’ve added a short field notes section below with what surprised me the most, what I didn’t expect, what I might do next time, plus things I’m still working on.