guided meditation

Dear K-

Are you the type that works better when you have procrastinated? On the radio once I heard about a study conducted that tried to determine if people were more successfully productive if they accomplished things well ahead of a deadline or if they procrastinated and waited until the last minute to complete the task. I’ll skip past the introduction and methods and get right to the meat of it: the most productive and best results came when people started something, didn’t finish, and came back to it a couple times before the actual deadline. Waiting to the absolute last moment before completing the entire project was not effective, because the result was usually sloppy and rushed. But completing the assignment well ahead of time was also not the ideal, because usually the subject went with the first idea they had and while it might have felt good to get the task completed so he/she could move on to other assignments, the result wasn’t as good as when they had time to think about the project and change the idea a few times and work on it more later. So I guess what I am trying to say is don’t get stressed that you have been putting things off. Sometimes a little procrastination is just the ticket for a more creative and thoughtful approach.

I had a strange moment in the middle of an exam today. Sometimes, during the most repetitive parts of my job, my brain will occasionally wander for a moment. Usually it never ventures too far, but occasionally I will get a non sequitur idea that takes me by surprise. It hits me like a bolt out of nowhere. Today, I suddenly remembered sitting in a specific room on the campus of where we went to college, in the science building. It was a conference room on the third floor where small groups could meet to study, work on projects, or for classes, such as my 8 person class for my junior year that revolved entirely around the pronghorn antelope. I would intentionally arrive early to this class and sit alone in the conference room because I found it so peaceful. The windows stretched from the ceiling to nearly the floor on three of the four walls, flooding the room with natural light and providing an excellent view of one of the busiest sections of campus. Sitting up there, a few stories above the hustle and bustle of students on the quad below, I’d watch people as they went about their day. The room was well insulated so it was completely quiet. It felt like you were watching a silent film. Some students would put their heads down and bee-line to their destination, avoiding all distraction. Others would actively stop and chat when they saw a familiar face. Sometimes someone would sit down on the ledge to the fountain and open a book, killing time between classes or until their friend showed up to meet them. I can’t explain why, but this made me so happy. It was calming. I liked being in that room alone. I liked the quiet. I liked watching lives unfold in front of me from the comfort of a sterile room, above it all. That conference room was one of my favorite places on campus. If I could have sat there all day with a cup of tea and a book and just watched people coming and going beneath me, I think few things would have made me happier.

I haven’t thought of that room in years. I wonder why I thought of it today. I’d like to find another place that makes me feel that calm and comforted again. Although if I did, I may be hesitant to ever leave it.

Wandering in reverie,

-k

Dear K,

 I've spent the whole month putting work off. I've spent most of last month putting things off. I've spent my whole life saying that tomorrow I would get to it. I fill up the present with worry that I'm not getting enough done and the things I want to do will be done tomorrow. This is what I do sometimes with my life. Sometimes I beat myself up about who and what I am. Sometimes all I dwell on are my failures and my vices and my sorrows and I turn and twist each one into a barb.

I promise though that life is better when you try to stop doing that. I think clearer, I sleep better. It's hard though. It's really really hard to not believe that I'm throwing my life away. It's really hard to not believe that all the hours I'm spending in loneliness and boredom and all the hours I pour into things that may never be read or seen by anyone or enjoyed by anyone, that all these things are not wasted. It's hard to remember that I didn't start doing these things because I want to be famous. It's hard to remember that I started making things, started writing things for the pure pleasure of doing it. The world wants us to rate ourselves, or maybe we want the world to want us to rate ourselves. I don't know, anyway we spend our lives looking around at everyone else trying to figure out how good we are compared to them, and that's a losing game, because there is always a bigger monkey.

I'm sorry your down. I know that's hard. What makes you happy though? Give me a call sometime. Lets talk and laugh and reminisce, and think of distant Junes when we smelled flowers in bloom through screens in our windows, and we were young in the sun, and hangovers couldn't touch us.


In The Trenches Next To You,
K

anywhere but here

Dear K-

I’ve been feeling low lately. There’s no real reason. Science tells me it is probably because the serotonin receptors in my brain aren’t functioning quite as well as they should be. But who knows. I’ll shake it off eventually like a dirty old shawl, but for the moment it’s too cold to change. I started to doubt everything I’ve been working on lately. Who am I kidding? None of this will ever amount to anything. Even if I do finish these projects, who will notice them? How long will any recognition or appreciation last? My mistake was to give myself expectations. I mistakenly became excited and dreamed of flying a little too close to the sun. How could I ever expect to fly? I’ve got one foot in the grave and I’m terribly afraid of heights. These things I write, create…they can only be things to pass the time and bring me amusement. If I try to make them up to be anything but the simple diversion they are, then everything shatters. I need to be more cautious in the future.

You are a good friend. I don’t tell you that enough. I’m sorry if I’ve ever let you down. I hope we continue writing until we’re old and blind. I hope we never completely lose track of each other.

Please,

Stay on my map,

-k

Hope For The Hopeless, Love For The Loveless, Breath For The Breathless

Dear K,

I think there's a good chance that we'll keep writing to each other our entire lives. I'm sure there will be gaps. I'm sure there will be times when both of us are too preoccupied with our own lives to write each other. I know though that I turn to this place, to this bridge that we have created between the past and the present and between each other's pasts and the present, I turn to this bridge for comfort and succor against the abyss. I find myself staring into the emptiness of space and time more and more lately. I'm on a journey into the deep, and I'm not worried one little bit. I'm gonna get stronger. I'm going to get smarter. I'm going to come out breathing fire and flame like oxygen. I'm going to come out the other side with a bright torch and something to say.

Actually the stupid thing is the more I stare into the depths, the more I stare into the swirling abyss. The more I stare up at the sky and see the expanse, the unknown infinity of stars, the depth of time, the more I think about these things the quieter I get. I'm finding the things I want to say have already been said, and are already being said, by the stars themselves, by the rocks and mountains and trees, and the waving wind. The world is there to be read, and our insignificance is a fact.

I'm sure this sounds bleak, and it is, but it's also the firmest rock I can find in a universe of quicksand. Nothing is permanent. Entropy is coming for all of us, and thank god for that. Can you imagine something staying the same? Something being constant? How boring. How dull. How cruel. That would be anathema to life. That would be death. Nothing can be alive and unchanging, and so we require death to come for us. Require to come and lay us down. To deposit us into the sea of time, and let us float away into the past.

These letters are breadcrumbs. They're like buoys on a trawling net. Imagine your soul is a school of fish swimming through the ocean of time. These letters are trying to capture little pieces of it. To hold them up. These too will pass though. The ocean of time will have us all in her endless embrace.

I know none of that made sense, or anyway it didn't make any sense as to why I would write it here. I'm coming out of a writing paralysis though, so any words on the page are a victory and I don't care if they are jumbled and loose, I'm just glad they are there.

Like old friends. Like letters from old friends. I'm just glad they are there. Wherever they are, however they are, I'm glad you're here. On the page with me,

K