Dear past me,

of 02/13/20

April 15th was a happy day. The cherry blossoms, the gentle sprinklers, and the laughter were all I needed to feel infinite. The pencil smudges upon unmarked fingertips trailing against the hard granite steps, tenderly sketching out the silhouette of those around me. Rough pencil smears leaving trails of charcoal across the page, gingerly marking the beginning of a cherry blossom tree.

The girl wearing a pearl earring.

The girl wearing a mask who’s staring at her blank page, scared to leave a trace of… well, anything.

So to past me:

You don’t always need validation from those around you.

You can see my writing starting to repeat this, over and over, pit-pat, pit-pat, pit-pat, pit-pat, in a rhythmic pattern, echoing off of each other. I can almost feel everything again. It hurts, doesn’t it? Where you are now? Missing class because you got sent to the counsellors [again], feeling like Icarus when he melted from the heat of the sun, wax slipping from him, dripping down the sides of heaven. Everyone talking about everything you didn’t want to hear.

Cover your ears, cover your ears, it’ll pass.

I know you’re doing none of those things.

You bear and you take it. You brace yourself against the medal clanking of their words, the nails against chalkboards that you shy yourself away from.

No.

Take a breath, Angel.

[Pit-pat, pit-pat]

Look at the cherry blossoms. The joy of living.

Yours,
Angel
05/21

Dear Delarus,

When Romeo met Juliet, he cried "she doth teach the torches to burn bright!”. Juliet was the moon and the stars, the spots of light against a fortress of darkness. Her skin was glowing in the flickering of the candles as Romeo reached for her light. I imagine on her face was a graceful smile that would make angels lower their heads in shame, but no smile could ever match yours. I recall your parted lips, your windchime laughter and how your eyes sparkled like champagne in sunlight. Maybe in another lifetime, I would be your Romeo and you would be Juliet, starbound and immortalized in song. Now we’re only distant strangers halfway across Canada, your memory of my face blurry and forgotten. You are the swirls of speckled lemon yellow paint in Van Gogh’s starry nights, brilliant and glowing amidst the gloom. When I first saw you, you were staring to your right, not paying attention to a single word being said, encased in your little zoom square on my computer screen. You looked like a painting, and your camera was your gilded frame. Perhaps you ought to be admired like a masterpiece of an artist long gone, only to be looked at from far away, forever unattainable. I can only pray to whatever god above that one day our stars would align again and when the day comes, you wouldn’t be a painting on a wall, frozen in time and memory, but besides me on the museum bench.

Eliza

Dear Future Tasmiyah,

Did you ever get out of that cycle? You know that cycle. The cycle where everyday passes by same as the last. Soon days, weeks and months pass by and you don’t know where all the time went. It's a cycle, it's meant to feel this way. But it feels wrong because life isn’t supposed to be an ongoing cycle. Life is supposed to have its ups and downs, easts and wests. Have its rushes of adrenaline, the ones you get when riding a roller coaster or the rushes of adrenaline you get when you didn’t do your homework and the teacher comes around to check it. Life is supposed to show you different meanings of the same emotion. But when you're stuck in the cycle those emotions all feel the same. The days I looked forward to the most passed me by and I questioned why I even got my hopes high. The more days that pass make me question why I even try. I beat myself up and go through hardships, just for it all to wash away one day. But what happens if that one day is tomorrow or next week? I’m going to go, knowing I never felt anything real and my life was a cycle that was in a constant rotation trying to reach a goal I may not reached. So future me, Was it worth it? Was the cycle just me? Or was it something I devoted my life to but never reached?

Hi Ocean,

Do you know how important you are? We need you to survive and prosper! You are our heart because you cover two-thirds of the Earth’s surface - the world would not look the same without you. You are our global climate control system - there would be an increasing number of floods and droughts, and we would be heated to death without you. You are our lung as you are responsible for 70% of the oxygen on our planet - we would not be able to breathe without you. You are our nutritious food center as you are an important source of food for billions of people around the world every day - we would be starved without you. You are the boss of more than forty million people worldwide as their jobs are related to you - there would be no fishery or shipbuilding industries, and we would face difficulties in the tourism field without you. Finally, you are the home of many beautiful sea creatures - there would be no sharks and dolphins and octopuses without you. You should be proud of yourself. So, cheers! Do you know how selfish we once were? We thought we could do whatever we wanted to you without any adverse effects! Due to the lack of rules, we used aggressive fishing methods and we overfished in you. Due to our selfishness, we dumped garbage, like plastic and trash, in you. Due to our foolishness, we polluted you with fertilizers, pesticides, construction oil, and many other harmful substances. Due to our ignorance, we created problems, like climate change and rising temperature, that changed your pH. All these activities from us had created irreversible fatal consequences to you and caused harm to the marine species depending on you. As a result, we suffered, from unusual climate to deteriorating health to damaged industries, because you suffered. You should be angry at us. So, jeers! We want to say “sorry” now. We finally understand that you must be in good shape if we want a better future, and the Canadians are attempting to remedy our past wrongs done to you. New fishing standards have been established to protect you. Plastic-reduction laws have been introduced to save you. New technologies have been used to help clean you up. Restoration programs have been funded to conserve the cold-water coral and sponge reef living in you. I know you are still frustrated to frequently see how sea mammals are suffocated or starved because they get entangled in or ingest plastic debris. I know you still feel miserable seeing that the problem of coral bleaching is getting worse due to climate change. I also know that we still have a long way to go… but please be assured that we are working heartily to bring back the finest of you. I am looking forward to meeting a healthy you :)

Best,
Cyrenius

April 5, 2021

Dear Teens and Children,

Sometimes learning feels like a chore or a useless skill, especially when you don't like the things you are learning. Many people have that feeling of dreading to learn or go to school, I have that feeling whenever I have a big project due or a test to do. However, learning is incredibly important for the progress of individuals in society and for our entire species. The lessons you learn teach you to be prepared for the future. Learning is timeless, humans have done it since the creation of mankind. Learning through your mistakes is one such example. School is another example; it teaches us the skills we need for our future. People learn through making mistakes. By learning from our mistakes you can avoid making the same problems in the future. For example, if you are in a group project, and you made a mistake in a test but did not learn why you made this mistake and repeated the same mistake again, it would be detrimental to you and the group in which we participate. An example from my life when I learned from my mistake was when I pulled an all-nighter with my friends. I had always slept on a sleep schedule, and when I pulled an all-nighter, my sleep schedule was messed up for an entire week. It was one of the worst weeks of my life. Learning in places such as schools is necessary for our future. It is the stepping stone for your career. By having knowledge, you are able to do your jobs correctly and easily. If you were employed as a coder but did not have any experience with coding, you would not know anything and you would not make any progress, only if you knew how to code, you would be able to understand code and be able to do your job correctly. An example from my life was learning math, I was quite interested in becoming an engineer, being an engineer meant that I needed to know how to use mathematical equations to solve problems. School taught me how to solve math. In conclusion, lessons from the past can affect your future in both positive or negative ways. People evolve by learning and by making mistakes. This is how humans have made progress in society. I hope that people take learning seriously and don't take it for granted. It is a privilege to have education because, in reality, many children don't have the opportunity to attend school. It is the stepping stone for your future.

Sincerely,
Jonathan Jiang JJ