Letter to home

Dear Mother and Father,

If this letter reaches you in time, I hope so. Although I anticipate, considering the leisurely rural pace of Camp Silverpine's "mail system," that it will materialize sometime between my homecoming and the next equinox.

Still, I felt compelled to put pen to paper and yes, actually pen, by hoof, pen grasped clenched in teeth and neck at a very unbecoming angle to express thanks.

Thanks for sending me here.

I know that may come as a shock, considering what I said on the day of departure. If I recall correctly, I informed Edmond that I was being "shipped off like a crate of radishes." I believe I also said something about a "pollen-covered prison with no indoor plumbing or pomegranate spritzers." I was, in hindsight, a bit dramatic. But after two weeks of being here among the mud, the trees, the bugs the size of cufflinks, I’ve come to realize something. A few things, actually.

The first thing is this: the world is bigger than marble floors and pre-choreographed parties. It's louder, more chaotic, and infinitely stranger than I was prepared for. It's also more beautiful. The lake at dawn is something even the most gifted painters in the gallery couldn't ever quite capture. There is a silence here, a sort of quiet that seeps into your ribs and makes you breathe differently. Slower. Deeper. More genuinely.

The second: I've discovered I can do things I would have considered "beneath me" only a little while previous. I have lit fires. With sticks. I have cooked stew on those fires awfully, but passably enough to eat. I've slept on a wooden board that considers itself a bed and, amazingly, survived. I even attempted fishing. And caught one.

Alone.

With nothing but my teeth and hooves, and a bamboo rod that looked like it had been pulled from someone's garden.

I let the fish go.

It wasn't pity, or squeamishness. It just felt. right. To catch something, and not take it. This choice felt solid in a peaceful, earthy manner I don't think I've ever felt before.

The third thing: other faunids are not what I expected. They're not one for fancy smells and all brand name fixated. Some of them can build a rope bridge in under ten minutes. Some of them can name every bird singing at sunrise. Some of them can crack you up so hard your ribs hurt, just by tilting their ears a particular way and telling you a story about losing a boot in the mud. There is a deer named Reed who is teaching me how to do things the "camp way" slowly, in the mud, and without complaint.

I am like two different folks. But he talks to me as if I could do things, not just own things. And I think that is what I needed, more than I knew.

I still miss home. I miss fresh sheets and tea service from Edmond and how the staff always remembers I despise nutmeg. But I don't just miss those things. And I didn't think that was possible.

I don't know if I'm "cured of being spoiled," as I overheard one counselor remark (rather loudly). For real though, I don't think that I was ever ill in the first place. But I do think that I was… restricted. And now the world has opened up.

So thank you. For pushing me out of the manor. For insisting. For making face the world with nothing but hooves and a week’s supply of very impractical scarves.

I’ll come back with a few mosquito bites, a new appreciation for silence, and maybe—maybe—a bit more grit in my bones.

Love,

Bao

(yes, the actual Bao wrote this, no assistants involved)

P.S. Tell Edmond that the lavender candle he stashed in my trunk worked, although now it has a hint of lakeweed.

P.P.S. And while you're at it, would it be possible to have a small firepit incorporated into the west garden? I have some ideas for s'mores.