I Never Got To Play Infield

Dear K,

Tonight I ran in the rain. I ran past people in cars and men standing outside the few fashionable restaurants. Wearing their trench coats and holding umbrellas out for their wives.

I didn't feel good during the run. I felt weak and strained and my lungs wheezed. My knees hurt, and my shins hurt, and my feet hurt. But I feel better now. Afterwards I stretched and took a bath, and watched a documentary about baseball, I've been watching this series about baseball and it makes me feel like an American. It makes me think of the springs I used to know with four or five other farm children in the pastures. We would take turns and run bases made from scratches of dirt. Every now and then the ball would land in a cowpie and we'd stop playing for a while to decide who had to clean it off.

Just before I went to bed, dreaming of the ball park, the crack of the bat, I remembered that I hadn't moved my car this morning and I went to go move it to the company lot.

I haven't found my car yet, I'm afraid it has been towed by the city.

I want to say "When am I going to catch a break?"
But really, a break is anything you decide is a break. I'm not really looking for any. Mostly I'd like to meet interesting beautiful people and pass my days watching the minor league team throw the ball back towards the infield to get the runner out at third.

It still stirs my insides to hear "Take Me Out To The Ballgame",
Just like watching fireworks,

-K

trust in the winter

Dear K-

Don’t retrace steps through broken glass and rusty shards of metal. Spring betrays us with thoughts of sentimentality, bringing us to doubt decisions of the past and longing for what we have left behind. Of course you miss her. The weather gets warmer and we see the sunrise and we think of sleeping outside and whispering language into a sweet girl’s ear while laying atop lumpy blankets over prickly grass under star-filled skies.

But never trust the moon when you’re about to fall in love. You cannot take back the sighs and murmurs of lost summers, and regrettable as it may be some loves are lost for good. I will never again caress the flesh of the tender Slovenian who stole my heart and kept it abroad as a keepsake. Do I miss him? Do I miss?

It’s only human.

But what can we do? Is it possible to believe that lost loves go about their daily lives without any thought of us at all? It must be so, otherwise we would hear from them and know that their hearts still beat. But we don’t. At least, I don’t. I assume they have forgotten about me, carrying out their daily tasks without a single pang of memory of me and what we had together. And rightly so. It only serves to further frustrate me, however, when I find myself drifting into nostalgia whenever I make French toast, or ride my bike aimlessly down city streets and feel the wind whipping through my hair, or drink my tea with milk. Will I ever give up the ghost of lovers lost?

Don’t let spring tint your vision rosy in retrospect. Love is lost for a reason. Sometimes we should not go looking for it in the same old places where we found it before. There is nothing left for us in those places-they’ve been found by someone else now.

-K

This is an old thing

Dear K

Where is she? Sarah. The name still tugs and pulls at my heart. I feel my arms around her in the night. I feel my breath stop short at her neck.

What is she doing with her life?

Was there ever room for me or her?

God I miss her hands, on my back, in my hair, intertwined with mine.

I miss her lips and breath. I miss.

It is spring. I cut things off in winter. I told her that things had never worked out between us and that they never would. What a terrible thing to say. How do I go back? How do I take my words back from that? How do I say I'm sorry again? I can't. Not in anyway that means anything really. I just want to know that she's alright.


K

i have nothing to offer except folding your shirts

Dear K-

I’m sorry about your parents. Don’t let them keep you from being yourself and finding your own personal satisfaction in what you do. I’ve been blessed with fairly supportive parents; a father who showed up for every single game, drove me to the endless tournaments on every weekend of summer, and sat in the backyard for hours while I hurled softballs at speeds upwards of 60 mph at his body. Sometimes I worry about the day when he won’t be around anymore. Then who will be left to be proud of me? Who will be left that I will actually want to be proud of me?

I’m sorry they weren’t there for you. There’s a lot of room for letdown when it comes to parenting. The ladies at work are older than me, and most have children or currently have a child growing in their belly. So, they talk a lot of parenting and raising children. Every single trivial detail is highlighted and spun out into a grandiose tale of personal triumph or humiliating defeat, no matter how old the child. Ethan threw a tantrum because he didn’t want to go to daycare and mommy lost her temper and yelled a bit too harshly and now she feels sorry for it but knows she can’t soften her position on the matter. Drew brought his girlfriend home and they got drunk in the basement together at his parents’ house and father caught them together on the couch. They wished he wouldn’t have dropped out of college, wish he would have stuck with it and tried a little harder.

The woeful stories actually don’t worry me as much as the happy ones. What about when Ethan brought his mommy flowers from the yard and told her he loved her? What about when he gave her the picture he made at school and she oohed and ahhed at his talents? When Emily asked to first start shaving her legs and her mother realized her little girl was growing into a woman, why do I get more upset at these anecdotes rather than the miseries?

Because I don’t think I have it in me to pull it off. Do I have the patience and the enthusiasm? Will I suddenly gain the enthusiasm that I currently find lacking in my approach? I don’t think I can jump and clap whenever a tooth is newly lost, grabbing my pocketbook and eagerly anticipating the evening when I can slip currency under a babe’s pillow. What if I just bury them in the yard? I’m not strong enough to continually smile with every gift of a macaroni necklace, or a glittered construction paper picture frame, or a mudpie. It makes me feel empty and distant. I wish I could be the supportive mother, the ever faithful source of strength, comfort, and advice. But no one is perfect, especially me. There are too many little factors beyond my control, and at the moment that prospect terrifies me greatly.

I will fold the shirts, cook the meals, sew on the missing buttons. I will someday be a suitable wife. But I'm not sure yet that I could be a proper mother.

I’m glad to hear you enjoyed the coast. You know I am always a strong proponent of travel and exploring new locations.

Head up, head up,
-K

This Would Break My Parents' Hearts

Dear K,

I was at dinner with my parents tonight, they were catching up with some old friends they hadn't seen in a decade. For the better part of an hour we talked about my sister. About what she was doing, when she is getting married, how proud they are of everything she's done. It kept going on and on until it was painfully obvious to everyone that they hadn't said a single word about me.

They said, "Oh but we're really proud of our son too. Go on tell them what you've done." Then I had to tell these strangers about the things I'm doing with my life. It was really obvious that I wasn't proud of anything I'd done. There was uncomfortable silence.

Then we changed the topic.

I wondered if they remembered the time they forgot me in Texas at a restaurant. Or if they remembered all the birthday presents they never got around to ordering. I wondered if they remembered all the swim meets they missed, and all the school plays where I gave my lines to an auditorium full of other people's parents.

But those were useless ugly petty thoughts. All of those things were accidents. They didn't mean any of that, but does that really matter?

I don't know if I want to have kids, it seems too dangerous.

K

Home Again

Dear K,

I went to the coast for bit. I went to the great metropolis. The bright lights and tall towers. I saw the rats in the gutters and watched homeless men struggle through the subways. I saw the statue of liberty and slept in a building that never seemed to end.

I saw all sorts of things: statues of dogs, men crying and screaming in the streets, women holding the hands of singing children, and endless streams of cars. I saw a man with no legs holding a cup out for change, and I saw women in fine fur coats.

But I didn't see hills and plains. I didn't see blue skies that stretched to the ends of my sight. I didn't see rows and rows of tilled earth waiting for crops. I didn't see men in coveralls standing next to their trucks angry at the world.

I want to leave the midwest.

But I always want to stay.

Let's ride bicycles across the plains.

Regards,
K

we exchanged helium because we're tired of ceilings

Dear K-

Fool, I will remember. I will remember it all. I couldn’t forget even if I tried, and I don’t want to. To think about the things that people will say about you once they have no motivation to please you with their words is certainly something I’ve thought about, as well. What would someone say about you knowing it would never get back to you? Would it be positive or negative? Would they sigh and lean back with a smile, their eyes glittering as they recall the fond times with you spent together? “Oh, he was such a character, really. Always up for a good time. Very sensitive, friendly disposition.” Or would they use more choice words to describe you? “Well, between you and me, he was kind-of a drunk. A sap on society. Meant well, but he was always just off in the clouds somewhere, never really making solid contributions to society.”

No one can blame you for wanting to be remembered positively when you are gone. We’d all like something to show for our brief time here, but unfortunately it’s never very easy. Even if we think we’ve made an impact on the lives of others, for how many generations will we be remembered? Will they tell their children of us, and then those children tell their children? How many years will our memory linger on? Once the acid rain has eroded to text off the front of our tombs, will they even know your name?

There is a graveyard near my house, an ancient affair with broken tombstones and a forgotten landscape. The tombstones have long been worn down to an unreadable state, and many have been fractured or relocated. No one knows where the bodies go anymore. No one knows who’s bones lie deep beneath the soil. And no one cares to find out.

As for insomnia, I can’t recall enjoying it. I always thought insomnia had a somewhat romantic, rugged appeal to it, as if it would fuel my writing and make me into a mysterious, provocative character. But it didn’t. Insomnia wore me down, made my days all blend into one fuzzy, dull march. I laid in bed at night thinking of the sleep that wouldn’t come, and when the alarm finally buzzed to prompt me to get up and ready for work I was almost relieved to have something to go do. But I missed sleep.

I like sleep. Things have the tendency to fall apart when I’m awake.

I run 5 kilometers a day now, and that helps me find slumber. It also makes me feel better about myself overall. I have always enjoyed running, and I like coasting about at my loping pace and observing all the people I pass as they go about their lives. When I listen to my i-pod as I run, it is as if I am setting the soundtrack to their lives, to my life. Of course, when I come home my legs feel heavy and my heart feels light, but I like that feeling. I like to feel like I’ve accomplished something.

I feel anxious here. I am eager to move again.

-K

My Thoughts Keep Turning Towards The End

Dear K,

I went to the coast for bit. I went to the great metropolis. The bright lights and tall towers. I saw the rats in the gutters and watched homeless men struggle through the subways. I saw the statue of liberty and slept in a building that never seemed to end. I ate dumplings. I was yelled at and mocked. I was hugged and greeted. I was made to feel at home and simultaneously alienated. The great heaving mass of humanity all around me had little or no effect, I was not suffocated or lifted up, I was simply holding onto the pole in the middle of the subway car.

But despite all of these things I feel sucked dry. I am empty and passionless. I feel rootless and transient in my hometown. I don't know how people do this.

Right now I can't sleep, again. I love my insomnia sometimes though. It bevels the edges of my depression and makes loose associations and I feel fluid and liquid. Is it strange to say that I am sometimes addicted to a sleepless state? I am. I am hooked. I love to sleep and dream, but even more than that I love when my dreams rise and bubble and burst forth into my waking consciousness.

This is America. I have no reason to get up in the morning other than the fact that it is what I'm supposed to do. I don't like my job, I like the money they give me. I need to do something else though. I am not built for that corporate world.

This might sound depressing, but I'm not broken up about it at all. It is warm outside, and I'm lying in bed with my windows open. I am alone.

Do you ever fantasize about your death? I find myself fantasizing about my funeral sometimes, oh it isn't as macabre as it sounds. What I really do is imagine what everyone I knew will say about me after I'm gone. It is an abstraction on imagining what someone says about you when you leave the room. I also fantasize about leaving behind some sort of legacy. I want someone to say something about how I did one activity better, or more uniquely than any other person ever has. I want to write a great book, and paint, and I want to have biographies written about me. I want people to be interviewed about knowing me, and I want them to look into the camera with surprise in their eyes and say, "Him? Oh well he was such a dear. You'd really never know he was thinking all those great thoughts if he hadn't written them down. He'd usually call me and ask how my day went, and I'd jabber on and on, and he'd listen patiently, and then more often than not he would change the subject or hang up before I could get anything out of him, he was such a dear." And she'll finger a smart necklace of pearls around her throat.

Do you think you will remember me after all the years of our lives?

You don't have to,

K