We are sisters, 2 ½ years apart in age.

When we were little girls, naturally we played together a lot.

Meg was high energy and outgoing. She wanted to be a superhero.

Cecelia was somewhat quieter and her inspiration was often to make beautiful things with her hands. Together we watched ants and carried kittens and laughed cereal out of our mouths. We dug big holes in the yard, tested to see who could swing the highest, practiced cartwheels and back bends in the grass.

But what we loved doing the most together were the games that went on for hours, when we acted out stories as we made them up, sometimes so intensely that we wept for real. Our Chinese dolls had their whole lives played out over entire Saturdays on the staircase in the living room. We choreographed dances together, some of which, when we were older, were performed as serious pieces during the ballet company’s regular spring programs. We imagined that one day we would have a television show together.

We wanted to give something exciting and beautiful to the world.

After high school, we spun detailed fantasies about a school we wanted to create where people could learn what we thought were the most important subjects a human might need, like developing true empathy, or accessing creativity, or deeply understanding their own bodies, and beyond that, understanding this amazing planet we live on in a deep and passionate way. We envisioned lavishly cushioned classrooms, scientific inquiry coupled with martial arts and dancing, or subjects taught while sitting on beds of pine needles in the forest. What mattered to us, then, was to help the world we humans were creating to be a more beautiful and much more heroic place.

It still matters to us now. And finally, after all the years in between, having raised our children and pursued multiple other career paths, we are indulging in our childhood dreams again in grown-up form. Now we’re writing books together.