14 PUNCHMAGAZINE.COM {sloane citron} deal with that, then you just want everything to be perfect but to tell you something not everything can be perfect (but really nothing can be perfect.) Please try to just think about it. Try to make it a kid’s room not a 20 year old person’s room, I’m not even going to be here when I’m 20. Oh—on the next page, I show you where I want it to be. If it’s in the corner, then no one will be able to see it and I will just forget about it. Remember, I’m not 20. Thank you. I love you, Ari. The true beauty of this letter was seeing the creative spirit emanate from my daughter—her divinely-inspired gift revealing itself at such an early age. Her first, gentle effort to redo her room led to four more attempts to make her room her own, including new paint, doors removed and furniture rearranged. Finally, it was to her liking. Today, Arielle is a noted interior designer. With ease and confidence (and incredibly creative style), she has designed dozens of beautiful homes in Atherton, Menlo Park, Beverly Hills. And now, when I see her designing rooms and deciding on the multitude of choices in a home, I can’t help but think of her first little drawing of her own room. Yes, my dear Arielle, you can rearrange your room! I love you, Dad. A s I’ve been chronicling in these pages, we had to move out of our family home for an extended time while it was being renovated. Recently, we made the big transition back. Moving (in this case twice) is, was and always will be one of life’s most unpleasant tasks. We have boxed and reboxed and boxed again. Each time, we made the three distinctive piles: keep, donate, throw away. Each time, the donate and throw-away piles are extensive, and yet, like a plate of unwanted food at a formal dinner, the pile of boxes just doesn’t seem to get any smaller. But one good thing keeps happening: the discovery of long-lost or forgotten mementos that capture a moment, time or place that brings back joyful recollections. I’m not one to throw away these fragments of my children’s lives—each one a perfect treasure, a moment in time that I can never revisit now that those children are grown, their childhoods distant. I don’t possess a mind that can easily remember the past; I need the physical reminders to help me recall the happy events of my life. For parents, these fragile relics, when read years later, can provide a snapshot of the life your child was headed toward. Of course, their whims and wants can and do change, but often the mark is there. I speak from some experience, since I started my first publication when I was eight. During our latest unboxing exercise, I came across a three-page letter from my then-11-year-old daughter, Arielle. She is now married with two sweet boys, ages five and three, and a newborn little girl. Finding her missive was a bit like unearthing a clutch of arrowheads during the excavation for a new building in Santa Fe—everything stopped, and I slowly read this newly re-discovered treasure: Dear Dad, How are you doing? I love you so much and I think I should be able to choose where I put things! My room is already too grown up for me and I need to put more colors in it. I know that you want my room to be just right, but I’m sorry that I’m not 20 but I am still 11 and I’m still only a kid. If I could just pick where I put my bulletin board, I would be very happy. Remember it’s not yours, it’s my room. And if you can’t creative firsts
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