Joanna Guest - Folded Wisdom: Notes from Dad on Life, Love, and Growing Up

MY DAD IS what youd call a morning personhe feels he is his best self at the crack of dawn. He is also a creature of habit. These days, he wakes up at five A.M. and heads to Prospect Park near our home in Brooklyn. He alternates his weekdays between going there with our dog or with his bikeboth of which he loves and both of which have him covering somewhere between five and nineteen miles before the workday begins.

When I was growing up, he also followed a morning routine, but that one was a bit different. Every morning he would wake up before the rest of us, take the dog out for a walk (at the time we had Sunny; now his four-legged friend is Bear), then return home to get settled at the kitchen table. There hed sit, with a cup of coffee and a lit candle or two, open up a six-by-nine pad of plain white paper, and write.

What he wrote varied over the yearsbut the routine and recipients never shifted: beginning in 1995 and continuing for the next fourteen years until we each graduated from high school, he would settle in every school morning and write both my younger brother, Theo, and me a note. He would take a moment, alone with his thoughts before the day became hectic, to reflect; he wrote and drew and put a piece of himself on paper for us to carry into the day, every day.

My rough estimates say this means he wrote us 4,775 notes. Today, we still have more than 3,500 of them.

The notes began as illustrations, accompanied by a few words, and were tucked into lunchboxes alongside our sandwiches. As we got older, more and more sentences filled the page, and the little pieces of paper were folded up into triangles, like paper footballs, waiting on the kitchen counter to be grabbed on our way out the door.

The daily missives evolved alongside usfilled with thoughts that were sometimes personal and other times universal. Sometimes theyd congratulate us on a good test score, or an impressive strikeout; theyd reflect on an argument, an incident of sibling rivalry; theyd be about friendships and love, and also about differences and disappointment; theyd teach a lesson, or apologize for setting a bad example; theyd often remark on the weather, or words would be strung together in rhyme; they might reflect on an untimely passing, and at other times on a life well lived; sometimes theyd capture historyof what was happening within our family and on the front page of the newspaper.

Many of us have a morning routine. And occasionally those routines get shaken up because life happenswe get sick; we sleep through the alarm; an unexpected work trip pops up; we feel down, uninspired. This, of course, happened to my dad, too, but somehow it never disrupted the opportunity and genuine commitment he felt toward sharing himself with us.

Sitting down late at the kitchen table might mean his note was brief or didnt include color illustrations. And a week of traveling meant he wracked his brain to write out a series of notes ahead of time, explaining why he had to be out of town (There are so many times in life when you have to do things you dont like. This is one of them for me. I dont mind the work, but I hate being away. At night is the worst I hope you are sleeping with Mom so she doesnt have to be alone), telling us he missed us (Thank you for your patience, honey. I know you miss me a lot. I know I miss you a lot too), and, always, sending his love alongside the promise hed be home soon (Home again! Im comin home again! To stay longer would be a sin! I cant wait to get home to the family din! Hug you and grab you and give you a spin! Kiss you and kiss you again and again! Have fun todaywork hard and then I ll be home again!).

At a certain point, this routine became more than a preferred way to start the dayit was the only way.

You have no idea how peaceful it is to sit at the kitchen table with a candle or two burning and a cup of coffee in front of you and a pen in hand ready to write. I love getting up ahead of everyone and having that hour to myself and my thoughts. Its a very helpful, meditative way to start the day. It gives me a chance to think about myself, about you and Theo and Mom. And writing to you gives me another chance. A chance to connect with youshare my thoughtsmy life with you. A chance to give you something of my private self. Without feedback of any kind, which is a plus and a minus but heythats life.

Note to Joanna, January 23, 2002 (age 13, 8th grade)

I now understand that my dads dedication to this form of morning meditation and reflection evolved naturally out of the particulars of his own childhood and early adult life.

Robert (everyone calls him Bob, and often I do, too) is the fourth of eight childrenfive boys, three girls. His father, Rear Admiral Frank Guest, was out to sea with the U.S. Navy for most of his upbringing, and his ever-patient mother, Joan, spent her days trying to control their growing herd of children. They moved thirteen times during his childhood. He attended eight schools in seven cities between first and twelfth grade. Naturally, his best friends were his siblingsit was hard to maintain the fleeting outside friendships that were made in each new town. He felt his personal relationship with his own father, however, was minimalone-on-one time was rare, owing to competition among siblings and my grandfathers military duties. While he never says a bad word about his upbringing, my dad remembers having all of one conversation alone with his father in their short time together. I never had the chance to meet my grandfather; he passed away when my dad was only twenty-three.

My parents met in 1976 at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn. Bob was a sculpture major and my mom, Gloria, was in the industrial design program. They met in drawing class, and my dad was in love within ten days. (I say this with confidence because I recently found a letter he wrote to his friend Brian in which he declares, in no uncertain terms, this love: Gloria and I have only known each other 10 days and it seems like all my life and at the same time not at all I love Gloria, Brian. I dont need to read it in a book by Kant or in a poem by Whitman. I do. I love her. Turns out hes always had a way with words.)

After graduating, Gloria went to work for a design firm in New York City while Bob supported his large public art installations with random side jobs (at one point opening a company called Snappy ConstructionIf Youre Going to Make It, Make It Snappy). In 1986, after ten years of dating, they decided to formally settle down and were married in a small chapel at their alma mater. That same year they incorporated their new exhibit production business, which continues until this day.