Our Daughters' Dreams

Meditations on the world we want from makeshift guest rooms

May 12, 2025

It’s Mother’s Day and I found a note on my iPhone.

I began it in October 2023 after a couple sleepovers in my friend’s daughters’ bedrooms. I wake early in these makeshift guest rooms—surrounded by their sweet small worlds. It’s the place where my dearests’ daughters dream. It feels strangely intimate to glimpse these spaces. As an aunt, a friend, and a weary-but-ultimately-hopeful designer, I can’t help but think of them when the world feels overwhelming.

Here are some vignettes I’m keeping with me this Mother’s Day—

My thumbs tap out the tiny-big moments in Miriam's room in 2023

Miriam and Clara, Texas

Miriam showed me her box of special letters today. In the morning, I wake to a noisy flock of cedar waxwings out the window. We’ll watch them with binoculars in the backyard in the afternoon and make bracelets together. Two years later— forever in childhood time— her mom and I laugh harder than I have in months on her bedroom floor. The eve before I depart, her younger sister Clara describes each rock in her collection to me. As I drift asleep in her twin bed, her tiny hand insists pyrite into my palm— ‘fools gold’ —“you must take it with you.” I do.

Juliet, Illinois

Juliet has set out a unicorn to protect me while I dream. We’re blocks away from a campus her mom and I attended asynchronously. Five years apart, our reunions now share a rhythm. We debate shades of red lipstick to wear as Juliet “reads” to us from the toilet before our respective parties. She lets me borrow her butterfly ring to wear to my 15th. A generous gesture. In the morning, we’ll puzzle while her brother parades his lizard around the living room. Before I leave, she shows me her bedazzled stones

Grace, California

Grace made a tent to calm down in. It feels wise and important. I’m allowed to peek inside and see her “toolbox.” I’ve been in a workshop all day at the d.school— where her mom began her work and we met. We listen to Grace practice piano. I glimpse into the tent and take mental notes of what to do when I have a big feeling: “wiggle,” “hit pillow,” “eat crackers,” “rest,” “hug,” “breathe,” “build.” I just have to “do what the words say.” Simple enough, right? I admire the airplane she’s drawn as I check into a flight that will take me 3,000 miles away.

Collins and Charlee, Minnesota

Collins started keeping her recipes in a special binder alongside her secret letters and our co-written book about a popsicle empire. The culinary collection grows: butter, s’mores, honey bread, chocolate milk. “Cooking tips” sprinkled in—I admire this addition. The summers stitch together—which feels important when you’re the faraway ones. She pins her secret room drawings and to-do lists to her walls. I tuck gems in her jewelry box. Charlee and I “catch” kisses until I finally have to shut the door. The lightning bugs are out. The kids sleep. We go out on the lake with the loons.

Gemma, Michigan

Gemma and I make up silly songs in the mirror. I indulge the upteenth bow in her hair. The previous summer, when she was a baby, her bedroom was my improvised office. Now, I watch her inhabit every nook.
The sun sets. I bear witness to the bedtime choreography of my twin’s family—we’ll read three stories, sing two lullabies, and plead for one more. Next year, we’ll begin the glowstick bath time ritual. I stick extras into a jar for a nightlight—auntie magic.
Sometimes I sneak into her room early and we whisper while the sun comes up.
Maybe living far away makes these moments possible? I hope so.
She trades her blue peacock wallpaper and crib for pink woodland bedspread— a big girl room. I mail a flower for her nightstand to mark the rite of passage. She’s the only preschooler with a portrait of a freighter at her tea party.

A big girl bedroom gift and a framed picture of a freighter at Gemma's tea party table

I think of other daughters with rooms far away from mine in Brooklyn— sweet Thea, Tallulah, Ada, June, Delilah, Billie Jean, Talia, Lily, Lilian, Lola, and little Landyn. Many more I’ve yet to meet—Julie, Noemi, Salma. Becoming friends with the little people my friends have made has been an unexpected gift of this season. The circle widens. Kinship grows.

I remember the friends whose childhood rooms I’ve stayed in. Lauren. Erika. Anya. It’s rarer as the years pass. Tucking each other into our childhood rooms feels like a spiritual practice. Who were we then? Who have we become? How has the world changed? How are we changing it? I’m grateful for this dialogue with our younger selves.

I carry these little worlds back home with me. Tiny, yet huge. Whole. Touch stones for what is real and precious. Your daughters’ rocks jingle in my pocket. They’re steadying. I try to remember them when I make big decisions, when I use my voice, when I want to give up, when I need to be brave.

I wonder:
Can we build a world worthy of our daughters’ dreams?

My heart is tested daily.

Between headlines and the projects I work on, I shudder as I watch the systems shake. This place could be beautiful, right?

I squeeze the stones in my pocket. Right?

I hope so.

I’m trying.

I remember Grace’s wisdom:
“Wiggle.”
”Rest.”
“Breathe.”
“Build.”