Dear T —

I feel ashamed telling this story, despite having done nothing wrong.

When I was seven, I was nearly kidnapped.

I lived across the street from my elementary school and played basketball there sometimes.

One day a man sat and watched me from the benches. He asked me to go home with him.

At that moment, I felt like the only person in the world. Besides him.

If I lived, died — or worse — it all fell on me.

I remember my thoughts descending into my shoes, my sense and body fused.

A minute stretched thin.

—No, I said.

Nothing happened.

Finally, he stood, walked to his van, and drove away.

Only afterward did my mother come and ask who I was talking to.

—Nobody, I said.

She yelled at me to come in for dinner. I hate my mom’s cooking — don’t tell — so I stayed out instead.

Here, I’d tell my “students” to find a good transition to share lessons learned. Instead, I’ll share something genuinely embarrassing.

Around that same age, I remember going to bed each night thinking —one day I would be a great man, do great things. Great was vaguer then, clearer now.

(I was such a weird kid.)

But that still is not the most embarrassing part. Although a bit older than that now, I still go to bed thinking that.

(I am such a weird adult.)

Let me rephrase this: I felt I had something special inside of me, and I needed to find a way to let it out.

(Everyone does though.)

So the takeaway here may be that I peaked at seven.

Or that the most important lessons, for me, came early in life:

With my whole heart, I love balance. The fiercer the calamity, the calmer I get. With fire, I’m ice; with ice, fire.

What I want matters. More than what others want for me. More than what I think I should want. Desire makes us.

I know what I want more than anything. I’ve always known. It scares me to chase it; it scares me more not to.

(Of course I have bad qualities. I just like to think of those as good qualities in training.)

Yet even these are not the most important lessons.

What is is that this letter embarrasses me. I had all the answers. I just missed them. Shame teaches us.

At bedtime tonight, borrow my gleanings and dream with them. They have been gently used.

— Ever D

(Tp,Tw)