The letters.

A place is held for you.

甘え · ah-MAY-eh

Somebody who loves the two of you has held a place in AMAE, and it is waiting whenever you are ready to walk into it.

Eight evenings, before your child arrives. Six couples whose children come the same month as yours. A vow you write yourselves and say out loud on the last night, to somebody who cannot yet read it.

Choose the room in Melbourne or your own pace, wherever you are — either way, the two of you simply arrive. It is all taken care of.

The eight evenings are yours.

You have taken your place, and you are walking it wherever you are. That means the two of you set the pace rather than a room setting it for you.

The first evening is waiting. Take it on a night when neither of you is going anywhere afterwards — that is the only preparation there is.

Your vow is kept exactly as you write it, in your own words, and it is yours until the day you hand it over.

Your place is held.

甘え · ah-MAY-eh

You have a seat in a room of parents whose children arrive within weeks of yours. Eight evenings, and one at the end where you stand up.

Come as you are, with whatever kind of week you have had. Preparation is ours rather than yours.

Tomorrow evening.

Your room begins tomorrow. Everybody arriving has been where you are this week — the same tiredness, the same strangeness of it, the same quiet excitement they may not have said out loud yet.

Come empty handed. This programme asks for no reading, no preparation and no homework, at any point.

It is written.

Your vow is saved, in your own words, down to the space before the last line. Nobody here reads it and nobody edits it.

It is yours until the day you hand it over — at fourteen, at sixteen, or off a wall in your hallway they have walked past their whole life.

You wrote this before she arrived.

Eleven months ago, in a room, the two of you said this out loud:

A new way in.

Somebody asked to come back to what is held here — your vow, in your own words, waiting exactly as you left it.

If it was you, this door stays open for the next hour.

Your room has moved.

The room you were joining has been moved to a new date. We are telling you before anybody else and before you had to ask.

If the new date suits you, keep it and we will see you there. If it does not, reply to this letter and every dollar comes back the same day.

Every child arrives carrying a wonder that belongs to no other person who has ever lived.

Every child arrives carrying a wonder that belongs to no other person who has ever lived.

Every child arrives carrying a wonder that belongs to no other person who has ever lived.

Every child arrives carrying a wonder that belongs to no other person who has ever lived.