Happy father's day...

At the risk of sounding like a millennial twit, I can't even...

Recently I saw this list that F. Scott Fitzgerald sent to his daughter Scottie, at the end of a letter, when she was 11. I think you would have liked it, so I'm pasting it below. 

Love M

Things to worry about:

Worry about courage
Worry about cleanliness
Worry about efficiency
Worry about horsemanship

Things not to worry about: 

Don’t worry about popular opinion
Don’t worry about dolls
Don’t worry about the past
Don’t worry about the future
Don’t worry about growing up
Don’t worry about anybody getting ahead of you
Don’t worry about triumph
Don’t worry about failure unless it comes through your own fault
Don’t worry about mosquitoes
Don’t worry about flies
Don’t worry about insects in general
Don’t worry about parents
Don’t worry about boys
Don’t worry about disappointments
Don’t worry about pleasures
Don’t worry about satisfactions

Things to think about: 

What am I really aiming at? 
How good am I really in comparison to my contemporaries in regard to: 

(a) Scholarship
(b) Do I really understand about people and am I able to get along with them? 
(c) Am I trying to make my body a useful instrument or am I neglecting it? 

With dearest love,

Daddy

Father's Day

Happy Father's Day, Dad.

I miss you always.  I wish you were grilling us burgers on the deck today.  I wish, I wish.

I love you so much,

Amy

Monthly flowers

You really loved lots of flowers, and as I've written before we loved chatting about what's happening in your garden or in mine. 

One thing that I'm starting to slowly understand, that I didn't before, is how fleeting many flowers are in terms of how long they bloom, and how cyclical they are. 

So I'm waiting forever for the peonies, but they weren't here for long :-(

But at the same time, I'm starting to understand the order they come in. 

April: crocuses.

May: tulips, peonies, fruit trees.

June: glorious roses, salvia, hydrangea, foxglove, wild flowers. 

July: ? I don't know. It's next month. I think Phlox, sunflowers, dahlias, echinacea? 

This is obviously not an exhaustive list. But I find it comforting, somehow, to know that everyone who gardens or cares about gardening is waxing poetic in June about wild roses. I know you would have been showing off the rose bushes, too. 

Love M

Beach days

You know how much I love the beach. It was a beautiful weekend, sunny and hot, and I swam for the last three days in a row.

Don't worry, I slathered myself in sunscreen. 

I just remembered today, when I was irritating Idriss with my incessant demands that he put sunblock on, how annoying you were about it growing up. 

You used to take us to the ocean beach on the south shore a few times a summer. We'd get there and be SOOOOOO EXCITED - we were little kids on a big sandy beach with big waves in front of us. Much to our chagrin though, when we arrived you would make us pile on the sunblock and then wait a full TWENTY MINUTES before getting wet, so it could "absorb" into our skin.

Dad, that was torture. Twenty minutes to a hot, sweaty, excited kid on the beach may as well be a year. If you had a digital watch at the time, I wouldn't have put it past you to time it exactly. That was so frustrating! I just so vividly remember dying with impatience to get into the water. 

Just like I always am now! Some things never change. 

xxxxxx

M

Dog encyclopedia

You were a man who liked facts, information. Not that context and shades of grey weren't of interest, but as a general rule you liked precision. I remember in Junior High School that my teacher told us that the US entered WW2 in 1942, and you were horrified. You also corrected that detail quickly: December (8th?), 1941.

So obviously, growing up we had a lot of reference books. A whole set of World Book encyclopedias, a set of children's encyclopedias (I used them to look up glossy animal photos, of course), law textbooks, dictionaries, etc.

One funny addition to that canon was a dog encyclopedia. I am not sure where you got it, or when exactly, but any time you heard about a new breed, or if we were wondering about a certain type of dog's temperament, out came the book.

Just a couple of years ago, there was a puppy that I saw frequently out on walks in Tribeca, near my office. I can't remember the name of the breed for the life of me, but it was absurdly cute, even-tempered, and calm, and I tried to convince you and mom to get one. Out came the book again - but it wasn't in there! It's a new breed, and they come from Canada. I remember distinctly feeling sad for you that your book wasn't up to snuff. I need to look for this book next time I visit Mom.

xx
M