folded wisdom

My dad, Bob Guest, has always felt comfortable with a pen in hand and blank piece of paper in front of him. While studying art in college, he relied on dozens of sketchbooks to reveal his creativity, thoughts, frustrations, and joy.

Fast-forward to 1995 — he was now married to my mom, Gloria, and together they were running a small-business and raising my little brother Theo and me. As the years went by, he found there were fewer and fewer moments to be alone with his thoughts, and so it was this year that he decided to make that time a part of his morning ritual.

Every day, before anyone else was awake, he would sit down in the kitchen, light a couple of candles, reflect on the day ahead, and write. He’d then fold the pages up into little triangles — one labeled Joanna, the other Theo — and leave them on the counter for us to put into lunchboxes or backpacks every morning, of every year, until we each left for college.

Today, almost 10 years after the last note was penned, a curated collection of these notes has evolved into a book — Folded Wisdom: Notes from Dad on Life, Love, and Growing Up. Traveling through the pages of words and colorful imagery, one sees how and why my dad sat down, day after day, to express his love.

When Bob began writing the notes, Theo was four years old in his first year of preschool and I was seven starting the second grade. In the early years, he filled the pages with simple words and drawings — colorful communication that made a point of meeting us where we were: being kids.

As the years passed, the notes evolved and illustrations began sharing the page with more of the written word. The notes grew alongside us kids. They were filled with all different kinds of thoughts — from reflections on a tough baseball game, to a hard history test, to larger lessons on life, to concerns about a particular family dynamic. There was no planning what to say; he’d just sit down, feel, and start writing, often winding his way along to a point as he went.