To the future, your future, which is also my own...
You sound so far off, sounds that have not yet been created in a space, an environment that is unknown yet it is intensely present,
It seems so strange to stand here midway through my 69th year speaking into “the future" but the strangeness is my own doing mostly because I have thought so little about the future that doesn't include myself...
But surely there is and it can be and should be beautiful, it should always contain beauty, beauty that is not produced by human hands but is the unique, undeniably intricate amazing complex, breathtaking,
and ever changing symphony of the natural world,
It has been ever on the horizon of what my life is and has experienced… and now I stand here with this #2 pencil realizing that I cannot just hope for your eyes to get the chance to see what I have seen and hear what I have been given to hear and touch the gifts that were mine to touch.
Hope is what I have in its fullest essence but hope is not enough anymore. Maybe it never has been "quite enough.”
So I commit to you, who I hope to know, and the you I will never get a chance to meet, that I will begin in the ways that I have not and recommit in the ways that have been fruitful to focus on your future and your world, that it might be even more beautiful than my own. By being more thoughtful and diligent in many ways and the ways of my community, we think about you and your world which is my own but is a gift that we both desire and which is the greatest I can offer.
This letter was collected as part of DearTomorrow Missoula, in partnership with DearTomorrow, an award-winning climate storytelling project where people write messages to loved ones living in the future. Messages are shared now at deartomorrow.org and through social media, public talks, community events, and public art to inspire deep thinking and bold action on climate.