Dear Elle

Dear Elle,

If all goes to plan, you will be reading this the day you move into college (assuming you don't turn out too stupid), shortly before you move out of your parents' house (assuming you don't get knocked up and move out at 16).  The year, presumably, is 2032: your hair an auburn brown with sunset streaks seen only at dawn, your smile like a full, bright white set of dentures, and your eyes wide, unassuming, seeing.

While you've probably turned out blonde and had braces for at least three years to fix those teeth of yours, I know I'm right about your eyes.  You see things other people can't, don't you, Elle?  I know what that's like (and perhaps, if I'm still friends with your parents, we can talk about it sometime)-- and I'm not going to pretend it's always easy to have that power.  But see there's a reason that power exists, right?  I mean, both your Mom and your Dad have that ability, the one where someone can be picking up trash on the Drive-Thru sidewalk behind McDonalds to take home for dinner and your Mom peeks past your Dad and says, "Hey! how are you?" because its okay to be nice to things you don't understand.  And your Dad from the drivers seat says, "Hey pal, here's a buck!", even though the trash-eater smells like the trash he's about to eat and it burns your Dad's nostrils because sometimes the way a person smells is NOT a good focal point for judgment.  If it was a woman they'd help too, I'm sure, but I bet your Mom would sound even nicer saying hi.

Now, this must all sound weird to you, especially because I don't even know if we have met, officially anyway.  At this moment in time, the one where I'm writing from you at a poolside in Florida, I have not seen you yet.  I'd guess that real soon I will get to run a finger off of your pretty cheek, which actually sounds really weird knowing you are reading this at 18.  But, awkwardness aside, I don't know when the last time before you turned 18 I saw them was, because I can't predict the future.  Don't get me wrong: I hope very much that your parents are still in my life, because they've affected it in more ways than one.  I'm not even going to tell you how, because you wouldn't give a shit anyway.  What you should give a shit about is listening to your parents, both Mom and Dad (I'm going to bet you're a Daddy's girl), when they tell you not to do stupid things.  They think they know what they're talking about because they've both done pretty stupid things and don't realize that preventing you from making those same mistakes will actually prevent you from learning things for yourself.  Then again, they're both so cool that I bet they've already figured that out.

Anyway.  This future-past babble is confusing me, and I'm supposed to be writing a time-friendly letter to you.  Supposed as in wanted to.  I think I was inspired because I saw a picture on Facebook of your Mommy holding you with your Daddy looking down at you and it just is perfect and I use the words Mommy and Daddy for the feeling they give because that's what matters in pictures.  I hope that's still the same, in your year, in my right now.

I am writing this to tell you about your Mom and Dad and their eyes, how they see, and here I have gone on and on about people that work at McDonald's picking up trash and how rebellious they were and the way they are in pictures.  I will still tell you what I know, what you'd say I knew, in a way that might grab a sassy, off-the-cuff teenager like you's attention.

The thing about Mommy's eyes is that they are always open.  Colors change with the years, and she sees every hue.  When it is warm in the summer in the dewy grass in Vermont and she's looking toward the mountains, her eyes are green and she is so beautiful. If she sees lights on in the darkness she's actually just remembering fireflies, and the way the field by the creek looked like a flashing landing dock ready for an entire fleet of constellation ships. Sometimes she will know what you're going to do before you do it, and if you haven't already learned to accept that, then you need to.

Daddy's eyes are dark, but in a good way.  It never really looks like he is actually paying attention to you, but he is listening to every word you say.  His smile makes his eyes look like upside down thumbnails that glint black like opal, and even though it looks like he can't see through them, that's when he's most visionary.
They even close sometimes when he isn't smiling, but when he is doing things that maybe I shouldn't mention at this moment.  And, in those times, your Daddy is one of the most fun guys to be around.

For all I know, you could have blue eyes, no eyebrows, and an oddly shaped head.  I'm not even going to try to make a guess on the specifics about how your eyes look, let alone specifically what they see.  Though, I do get a good vibe from you, Elle. Even though it's quite possible we have never spoken.

The things that I know you do see are the ones that people subconsciously ignore because we are programmed to avoid eye contact with anything painful or emotion-provoking.  That kind of game is for weak people, and your parents aren't weak.  You've probably tossed a few bucks at more than a handful of homeless people, and have given your nickels to those annoying Salvation Army folk who stand outside of supermarkets when Christmas comes around.  I think this means you're not weak either, though I'm also sure it means you've probably been picked on for caring.

Even if your eyes are the most disgusting color of pig shit imaginable, they're going to be a splendid combination of the ones in your parents' heads.  Maybe one eye will be bright blue, the other a majestic dark purple.  Maybe you'll have lost an eye from falling on a marshmallow roaster when you go camping for your 5th birthday. In any event, I know they were, are, and will be the captors of myriad love stories, retaining the reactions of bums who receive a record amount of spare change, the two things in the world that notice the little calcium stain on the bottom of the cashier boy's front left tooth and how he has three freckles on one earlobe and four on the other. (Your attention to detail, I'm sure, will help you succeed in college and beyond.)

And they will always be wide.  Unassuming.  Seeing.

With future, past, and everything in between love,

Lindsay

P.S.  Good luck in your first semester.