A letter to a 15 year old girl in America.
Dear S.
I gather there has been another ‘incident’. I am not too sure of the details, but I understand it has something to do with alcohol, being up all night and a beach party and then being not too straight with the truth. Or some such matter. Anyway, it has rather upset your mother. So, since you are over in the States, and I am here in the UK, I can’t come over and talk to you about it. I thought I would write this letter to you.
Whilst this is not the end of the world, it is becoming part of a pattern. There was, of course, the incident where you managed to get yourself in hospital after drinking too much vodka. That’s impressive, in a way. Even I have never managed that. And there was the unfortunate matter of nearly getting arrested for shoplifting whilst I was over visiting at your place. I did try to have a chat after that, but I may have had too much Shiraz to make sense, so here goes another time.
First of all, this is not intended as a telling off. Neither is it intended to send you on a guilt trip; in fact quite the opposite. Coming from a Catholic background, as you and I both do, I am often concerned that the Catholic faith can, when misunderstood, instil feelings of guilt which are not helpful or psychologically sound. Guilt has nothing to do with any of it. Rather it is a letter of advice, or recommendation. Apparently, some people consider my advice rather good, both professionally and personally. Trust me on that.
Where to start? Let’s start with some straight talking and get that bit out of the way. I am told that you have complained that you feel under pressure and stress, what with High School and whatever, and that you need someone to talk to. I believe ‘counselling’ may have been mentioned. Well, we all need someone to talk to, but I am afraid that doesn’t cut much ice with me. You have a privileged lifestyle in which you have the protection of two loving parents (and rather too few young men and women can say that). You have the looks and the brains (I know your grades are excellent; oh, your genetic make up has given you a winning ticket in the lottery of life). You have the guts and talent to ride and you do it well, and you have the beautiful warm blood gelding to use it with. In short you have the talent and a lifestyle which would be inaccessible to all but 0.0000001% of the planet’s population if that. Now, if you really are stressed by school, you might want to consider packing it all in and spending your time gainfully employed stacking shelves in Wal-Mart for the rest of your life. This is the preachy part. Pressure is being a single parent with a horrible boss, or needing a job. Pressure is being a surgeon when there has been a train crash, or a child needs a transplant. Pressure is when your father flies on business to pay for your lifestyle and has to make the right decisions for the company and the workforce. Your mother feels pressure when she is ferrying you to your shows at weekend when she is bloody tired and trying to run a family and do her work as well. Either what you say is bullshit (pardon my language) or just get grow up and get over it. Right now, whatever you may feel, is the least ‘pressure’ you will ever feel, whether you believe that or not. I think you’re just playing a card, and it doesn’t impress.
And whilst we are on the subject, if you are really subject to ‘peer pressure’, get over that too. The person whose true approval you need is looking back at you from the mirror and it is your own sense of integrity and value and worth that matters. If you can’t wise up on that one you will be a victim of unhelpful people all your life, and never be happy. If you can’t walk your own path and let everyone else be damned, you’re not the person I think you can be, and you will never be the person you deserve to be.
Okay, what’s next? Well, some rather gentler advice. I think you should re-evaluate your relationship with your father and mother. In the intense and glittering world that was Cambridge in the mid-1980’s they were the two outstanding souls I met, and I was part of a remarkable generation. Or that I have ever met, come to that. You might like to read that again. I said ‘souls’, not ‘people’. That is deliberate. They were the multi-talented: both were and are brilliant, not just academically, but fierce competitors at sport. Did you know that? But their goodness shone through, and still does. Have you ever stopped to watch your mother doing her vet stuff, and really looked? It is not just a job, or even just a vocation. It is an expression of the highest spiritual value, and the animals know it. And observe your father’s manner when he has to deal with his demanding brood squabbling around the dinner table. How he rules so calmly I don’t know, because I would have quite possibly have taken a baseball bat to you and your siblings within about 2 minutes (note: see further below). And why they put up with me I don’t know, but they do. They are the only two people on God’s earth for whom I would willingly and calmly walk in front of a train tomorrow, if needs be. That is why you should listen to them. They are special. And they are wise.
Now, this is the most important thing for you to know, and it is a rare gift to have – something I didn’t have when I was your age. You must understand that your parents love you unconditionally for who you are, not what you are or what you do. I know the grades are excellent, you are gifted at riding and so forth, and these are brilliant treats on the banquet of life. They are important, of course they are. They are wonderful. Keep excelling! But they are not ultimately what it is all about. Their love is not dependant on your grades, or your success in riding, or your college. It is simple and unconditionally about you. They would love you no more and no less with or without them. They love you, the person, for who you are. That takes all the pressure off, right there. By the way, that is actually the nature of God. Simple, unconditional love. Just thought I’d drop that one in there, for future reference.
That is why I expect your mother has given you such a rollicking. By the way, I am not against a little devilment. I have that in me too, and the spirit that gives you the ‘balls’ to jump those fences when you ride – which you do very well – will express itself in other ways, I am sure. But be careful how you manage it. Be careful it does not become self destructive – I have that streak in me and it needs to be carefully controlled. But then I didn’t have a wise mother and father, or a proxy uncle to advise me. Your mother’s anger is only love by another name. Have you ever seen a lioness when her cub does something stupid, like approaching a cobra? The cub gets a whack from a paw, and then some. It is just a natural instinct, and it is there for a good reason. Don’t be resentful.
It is now time for you to think more seriously about your life. You are growing up now. It is time for you to think: what is your goal? Well, you can stop thinking, because I will tell you. Your goal is joy, peace, energy, love, and fulfilment. In what forms you choose to manifest it is up to you. There is another way to put it. There was a philosopher and psychologist called Abraham Maslow. One of the things he wrote about was becoming the ‘self actualising’ person. What he meant by that was someone who manifested themselves at their peak in the world, who realised their divine potential. One who developed their talents in all areas and became the best they could be. Perhaps you could look him up. That is not about pressure, by the way. It is about discovery, joy, and adventure. You are well on the way. The prize is there for you. But will you take a step off the road when the prize is just ahead of you? Only you can choose.
How you get there is your choice, but your present choices are not serving you well.
Keep your faith. It will serve you well in hard times, and there will be hard times, because that is the way of the world.
Who am I to say such things, and give you such advice? It may surprise you to know that this mildly eccentric (to say the least) and a bit overweight middle aged English man who likes cooking and wine was not and is not always so silly or meek and mild. Indeed, I was a troubled young man with a quick temper and I wasn’t afraid to let it out. There was a wonderful fight one night when a ‘toff’ from Magdalene pissed in the corner of our college bar and insulted my friend Mark. I put his arm up his back and frog marched him to the door and then launched him into space, then it all got a bit heated. And I do recall nearly killing some big guy who started picking on me at the boat club dinner one night; he didn’t think my girlfriend was worthy of me, it appeared. Fortunately I was dragged off him whilst in the process of strangling him with his tie. I still have that temper. The ghastly man who started leaching over the woman I loved at the Millennium New Years Eve party would affirm that; a broken wrist can be a very bad thing for a guitarist. In fact, when I am not pottering about making bad dinners or pretending to be a monk on the internet, my day time job can sometimes best be described as the disciplined application of extreme intellectual violence. I have seen as much of the world as I would like to really; sorrow, triumph, true love, betrayal and disappointment, grief and bereavement. I have made a lot of mistakes, and done a lot of things right. Do you think I have not raved (and more) on a beach till dawn, or embraced my true love at the pinnacle of the Eiffel Tower or the Empire State building, or encountered evil in many forms, and done battle with it? I suppose I am telling you these things because I want you to understand that I am not saying I haven’t done things that are wrong, or lived it up a bit, but I can see things from a certain perspective. It means only I would spare you from making mistakes where possible, although a certain number of mistakes are inevitable and probably good for you. And to tell you that I will therefore always be here for you, in whatever capacity I can, as long as I can drawn breath. Unconditional and fairly un-shockable.
Do you remember the gift I gave you when I first came to stay with your mother and father? It was the silver topped riding crop, and I believe you still use it at shows and competitions, which pleases me. I don’t know if you are aware, but it is extremely valuable. But I hope you find this letter more valuable still one day.
Take care.
Gildas the Monk
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July 27, 2014 at 2:27 pm -
/applause
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July 27, 2014 at 3:12 pm -
It’s a great homily, but I doubt it will have any effect on the subject. Similar talks had very little on me at the same age.
Ripeness is all, as Shakespeare put it.
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July 27, 2014 at 3:36 pm -
You may be right, EWS!
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July 28, 2014 at 4:38 pm -
Be very afraid, Gildas. A well known fact amongst ruralistas, is that most horsey girls are goers. When I lent heavily on Godson number 1, some years ago to continue with Pony Club, I promised him that he would thank me for it in due course. He did , and has.
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July 27, 2014 at 3:12 pm -
Well said. Sounds advice.
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July 27, 2014 at 4:10 pm -
Fine, moving stuff.
I wrote a couple of very similar letters to my god-daughter when she was that sort of age.
I expect she paid as much attention to them as yours will to this one, ie next to none.
But comfort yourself, she has turned out fine. The good ones generally do.
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July 27, 2014 at 5:22 pm -
Ah sweet you took your god-parenting seriously.
They come out of their tricks and twists, I did.
Doesn’t matter how bright you are at 15 or how devoted and kindly your parents are.
There is a terrible period of self-absorption that must be got over and got through. You literally don’t have the capacity to see how your behaviour is upsetting those around you, or how they worry about you, and have very good reason to worry: knowing that some mistakes can be made which are not reparable. Every bit of energy you have is directed towards yourself.
Sometimes bringing up kids is not a matter of logic at all. You are flying by faith alone: coming in on a wing and a prayer.
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July 27, 2014 at 4:53 pm -
Gildas, aware as I am of the trials and tribulations of monastic life (you can never find a bloody quill when you need one!) and knowing how difficult it is to pen a decent hand on parchment that is ‘sweating’ in this H E A T W A V E (*insert Daily Mail CAPS*), I have taken the liberty of redacting your timely Epistle to your errant niece in The Colonies so that it may be transmitted by that wonder of our Age-the Transatlantic Telegraph.
I humbly suggest the following text:
“Dear Miss Kardashian.Stop. Regards G.”
-if that doesn’t put the fear of LORD GOD ALMIGHTY into a 15 summers Daughter Of Eve I shall eat my biretta. -
July 27, 2014 at 5:24 pm -
Fine work, Brother, I wish someone had said all that to my children!
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July 27, 2014 at 6:21 pm -
Sorry to be the contrarian, but this reads as much as an attempt to get something off your chest that’s been bothering you for years (your self-confessed bouts of youthful loutish behaviour) as a piece of advice to a person of unspecified gender, whom I take from the context to be a young woman.
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July 27, 2014 at 7:36 pm -
Not sure Gildas’ ‘misdeeds’ should be described as ‘loutish’ at least not by the standards of a Cambs man in the 80’s…personally I always thought Fish rather understated it…
Evicting some drunken Ermine Wearer’s Scion from a bar would have been considered about as loutish as punting the wrong way down the Cam and there are probably very few guitar plinky-plonkers who, like Mime Artists, don’t deserve the odd broken wrist-especially if they are of the ‘Folk’ variety and have breads.
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July 27, 2014 at 6:22 pm -
Sorry that should be “a piece of advice to a 15 year-old girl”.
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July 27, 2014 at 8:08 pm -
“silver topped riding crop… it is extremely valuable.”
I guess that rules out ‘Ann Summers’ then?
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July 27, 2014 at 10:07 pm -
That’s the difference between ‘valuable’ and ‘priceless’.
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July 27, 2014 at 10:24 pm -
It’s gentle and well-expressed and all that, but I doubt if it will work. I used to get letters like that from older-and-wiser people-who-knew-my-parents when I was “that age”, and God how I hated them. The reason was, those people never wrote me kind, intelligent letters on neutral subjects at times when there was no “problem”, so they hadn’t earned the right to preach when difficulties arose. Sorry, I know you don’t mean to be preachy.
So what sort of letter does win the confidence of a young person? Here’s one written by a character to his daughter, in Jean Giono’s short novel Life of Mademoiselle Amandine. The age of the daughter is not specified: I would guess her to be about 10. If you talk this way to a 10-year-old, she might listen to you when she’s 15. The subject really doesn’t matter. Everything is in the tone.
“Keep a good look-out for the red butterflies passing through. It should be about the right time. All you have to do is go out under the strawberry tree which stands next to my study. You keep still for a moment. You look up, at the underside of the trees. Then you’ll see them; they are red, like I told you. But they also have three big black blotches. They’re not blotches, actually, they’re streaks. Then, this is what you do: first you stand there and look at them for as long as you like, because they’re pretty, as you’ll see. Then you go into my study and on the right of the bookcase, in the corner, is my butterfly net, the big green one, made of silk. You take it and come back under the strawberry tree. You choose, by looking, a branch where there are three or four asleep on the underside of the leaves. Four, no more than that, because I only need four. You must leave the others, because they are pretty. You gently raise the net and you catch them. And this is where the difficult bit begins. You carry them into my study. Without taking them out of the net, of course, but you realised that. On the cupboard below the world globe, there are two bottles. Listen carefully, there is a white bottle with a big red cork. On it is written ‘Ether.’ There’s nothing in it. There’s a bit of cotton wool at the bottom, that’s all. It’s on the side of the globe that shows South America. That’s the one you take. Because, on the other side of the globe where there is all the Pacific and Australia and New Guinea, there is another bottle; it is rust-coloured and has a big black cork and a black label with a white skull-and-crossbones on it and the word ‘Gift’ on the side. That means poison. It’s poison, and you must not touch that bottle, the one on the Australia side. It’s rust-coloured, has the black cork, the label ‘Gift’ and is poison, remember; the other one is white, Ether is on the America side. You understand that I tell you this because I have confidence in my daughter. I wouldn’t give this job to the first person to come along. All right, you take the one which has ether in it, the white one on the America side. You open it, you drop the butterflies inside and you put the cork back in. That’s it.
“In my next letter I will tell you what has to be done with the four butterflies after that. Because if it were only to keep them in a jar, it wouldn’t be worthwhile killing them. In fact it would be wicked. And it wouldn’t be much of a man or a little girl who would do a thing like that. But they don’t suffer when they are put in the bottle. And then, at this time of year, they’re not being done out of much. Well, there’s room for disagreement about that. And I’d be glad to hear what you think about it. But what I mean to say is this: the red butterflies settle themselves under the leaves of the strawberry tree to die. They know that the nights now are very cold and they need plenty of warmth to live. You’ll see, their bodies are very tiny and frail. So they know they are going to die, and that’s exactly what happens, little by little, until at last they are quite dead. But while they are dying like that, there are days between the nights. And during the day there, as you know, it’s pretty warm. There’s sunshine. And — I don’t know whether you’ve already pruned it — there’s the hyssop, which has no flowers but oozes a sweet, sticky stuff (don’t play around and taste it; it tastes bitter to little girls and makes them sick). There are the two old pears which we left. There are the fruits on the strawberry tree. And then, as you know, there’s the warmth. When you are warm, it does you good, and it’s the same for them. So during the day they are quite happy tasting sweet things, being warm and being alive. There. Then again, of course, they don’t only have pleasure, even during the day. Think about that, too. There’s the tomtit which I pointed out to you, you know, the one with the black head. He eats them. The nightingale that lives in the linden-tree eats them too. So by day they don’t have only happiness. They have some unhappiness mixed in too. But at night they have only unhappiness. And plenty of it. Now I realise that I’ve gone and got it all mixed up. So this is what you must tell me: do the red butterflies — in your opinion — prefer to die slowly on the leaves of the strawberry tree, or else to die suddenly, without suffering, in the bottle? Now, I believe they prefer slowly. But you tell me what you think.”
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July 28, 2014 at 1:23 am -
“I used to get letters like that from older-and-wiser people-who-knew-my-parents when I was “that age”, and God how I hated them. ”
The ones I hated with a passion were the JJ Hartley-esque ‘old boys’ who were wheeled out, sometimes literally, at various school assemblies- the ones who’d either flown spitfires in the war or had written some book about ‘Left handed Fly Fishing On Lesbos’ long since out of publication. The faces changed but the ‘school days-best days of your life!’ message didn’t. I hated school and still, 30 years later, wake up in a cold sweat about it sometimes. I have instructed my own, now supposedly, adult children that if they should ever hear me utter the phrase ‘school days, best days of my life’ that they are to commit me to the nearest Retirement Home with specialist Alzheimer’s Unit.
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July 28, 2014 at 1:34 am -
*J.R Hartley…it’s late and the Amitriptyline hydrochloride is kicking in. That’s my excuse and I’m sticking to it.
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July 27, 2014 at 11:43 pm -
‘my day time job can sometimes best be described as the disciplined application of extreme intellectual violence’
Might a psycho, suddenly wearing his heart on his sleeve, not be just a bit too maudlin for a sassy American 15 year old?
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July 28, 2014 at 12:40 am -
Today, teenagers communicate in 140 characters, therefore I feel your missive (well intentioned though it is) is ultimately going to be ignored.
Frankly it sounds like she needs a kick in the arse, followed by “Hey princess, you have life delivered to you on a silver tray every day, yet somehow that is insufficient. Give me your celphone and credit card, and wake the fuck up. Now go clean out the horse stall and say goodbye to Dobbin, he gets sold next week.”
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July 28, 2014 at 7:35 am -
July 28, 2014 at 9:58 am -
Good Fortune Gildas I hope it works
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July 28, 2014 at 10:01 am -
When I lived in America, the brand I consumed most often was Chesterfield. In a sense, it still is, as I regularly turn to the work of Philip Stanhope, the fourth Earl thereof. He was a great man of letters, a man of great judgement and his lasting testament was, of the course, the collection of “Letters to his son.”
I turn to them not to pass on the advice to the son per se, but rather the manner of doing it. By the general tone of your missive, Gildas, I would assume that you have read it, too.
A further strength of his work was his reflection upon the wisdom of giving such advice:
“He who intends t’ advise the young and gay,
Must quit the common road the former way
Which hum drum pedants take to make folks wise,
By praising virtue, and decrying vice.”“Let Parsons tell what dreadful ills will fall
On such as listen when their passions call :
We, from such things our pupils to affright,
8ay not they’re sins, but that they’re unpolite.”Spool on, and I know quite well that giving advice to the young (I am blessed with two daughters) can be fruitless, as they must make their own mistakes.
But good luck with it…
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July 28, 2014 at 10:28 pm -
This is well written, as always. I was touched by your description of the nature of God. For the rest, if it were not fiction I would that you had not published it, so I hope that that is what it is. And whether it is or not, God bless you.
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July 31, 2014 at 9:52 pm -
Gildas. Thank you for your perspicacity. Would that I had your wit. Then just maybe my Godson would be alive today.
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August 2, 2014 at 10:11 pm -
Hmmm. Seems somewhat tangential to the alleged crimes.
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