we all have your shortcomings

Dear K-

When I was young, I liked to read the Confessions of St. Augustine. I can’t say I can remember it word for word today, but several parts really stuck with me over the years. One line I have certainly retained in my memory is a portion that I read over-and-over on cold winter nights like these. “I loved not yet, yet I loved to love…I was in love with the idea of loving and sought what I might love…”

I have always wanted to love. The idea makes my heart feel airy with delight, and yet I have difficulty finding people to focus my affection upon. As much as I wish to experience love and to have some feeling of devotion or dedication, to be able to write love letters, to take someone out to dinner and stare across the table content to say nothing at all because my adoration crosses beyond the threshold of words, I am unable to find that relationship. And so I wait, in love with the idea of love and yet not in love. With this clumsy explanation I attempt to relate to your desire to reach out in your loneliness and yet admit you're not in love. You’re seeking the idea, the blissful feeling of having someone to think about and converse with, but without actually having to dedicate any actual feelings or hassle with the commitment. I suppose I can understand that. Just don’t expect me not to ever write you a reply. I reserve the right on these lonely winter nights, when I hunch over my desk half-naked in the wee hours of morning, unable to sleep because I’m dwelling upon regrets and Brno, to draft up some responses. Perhaps I could use the relief just as much as you.

We’re more alike than you may think. You know me perhaps better than most simply because you’ve read my writings. You know how I feel when I’m alone with no comfort except a blank sheet of paper and a dull pencil. You’ve seen the me that I hide from the common world, the me that hoards receipts and old shopping lists, the me that thinks of lovers lost and yearns for days that can never return, the me that cries at the thought of tiramisu and still dreams of running paths in Slovenia and of a certain dark-eyed Slav. But what can I do? I have to let it out somehow. And just as you need to write letters, I have to let someone know that I’m not fully okay inside and know that I won’t be immediately judged. I’m sinking deep into myself, especially now that I’m alone here.

I’m always alone in winter.

Throw me flowers. I’ll pick them up and press them between the pages of heavy books, preserving their fragile, lovely petals for years to come.

Slowly fading into winter,
-K

something about tonight

Dear K,

It's me again. I don't know why, but tonight is a night for a mental release, catharsis. I'm going to hollow my nerves out for a while here. Don't take anything too seriously, unless you want to.

How prepared are you for my neuroses? You probably know them all already, but at the rate we're going you're going to be on the receiving end of an out pouring. Winter is starting and so is my seasonal misery in repose.

I love winter, as I love self-pity and sorrow and wallowing and crying and grieving for things that never happened and things that did and the possibilities in between, as I love the cold wind on my face and the feeling of my body shutting down as the temperature drops, and fighting back and prickling and numbing and beating and dying and all while staring at the stars walking alone with my back to the wind.

I love winter, but nobody loves me in winter.

I just thought I'd warn you that I'm going to become insufferable and pessimistic in email form, on the phone I'll probably be the usual cheery optimist everyone meets. But you might detect a tone or a pause or a swallow, and I'll play it off as being tired, and it is important that you allow me to think that I've fooled you into believing nothing is wrong, that is an important part of this game.

Are you ready for winter?


And then there's that whole issue about our escape. Can we pretend that I only invited you?

I'm so alone here.

I spend every minute of the day in my head, up the staircase of my fantasies, and it has been a long time since I came down. The next part won't make sense, and I'm trying hard not to delete it right now and forget I ever wrote it, but I try to be honest with you, and I'm not even sure what I mean in the next paragraph but I know that it is honest and earnest.

I need to write love letters. Can I write them to you until we agree that I shouldn't? I'll write them and you'll read them and they won't even have to be about you if you don't want them, they could be if you wanted them but that's not what they are, love letters are like flowers thrown onstage there is a an aim and a target but while they are in the air they belong to nobody, and when they land at the feet of the cast they mean nothing until they are picked up and claimed.

How would you feel about me throwing flowers at your feet?

You don't have to pick them up,
K

more than anything else

Dear K,

One conflict? I have a thousand hopes and dreams for my life.

I want everything for my life. I want to do great things, and I want to do very small things. I want to live so well that they make statues of me in foreign cities, and I want to have legendary vices and habits. I have ambitions that cannot be met in one lifetime, but I don't want to live forever.

I'm afraid of a lot of things. But my biggest fear is forgetting. I feel things slipping from me some days, and other days the memories tip toe away without me noticing.

Will you help me remember?

More than anything else,

K

sunset soon forgotten

Dear K-

I’d like to believe every one of us has that conflicting inner self, the one that is throbbing with pure and possibly irrational desires, usually concentrated into one main pipe dream. For you, it’s sailing through waves buttered golden by a setting sun, drifting wherever the wind so pleases. For me, it’s returning to my homeland. We both know that these things have an incredibly small chance of ever occurring, and if we ever should manage to accomplish our dream it will never be able to live up to its sparkling, pristine projection cast within our minds. It is simply fated to never be.

And so we grow up, we get our jobs and distract ourselves from day to day with the tasks that come our way. The rent is due. Your boss wants you to draft up the new copy of the lease. Your fridge is empty again. But at the end of the day, when you lay in bed waiting for sleep to come, we inevitably return to that deeply seeded dream. You see the undulating waters; hear the slap of the waves against the bow of your gently pitching craft. We’re beautiful and young and happy. I’m wandering the streets of Brno, smelling the brewery down the block and watching the trams go to sleep. I’m still young and athletic and there’s adventure with each and every day.

But look at us now. Should we really be disappointed in what we are today? I don’t necessarily think that we are dissatisfied, but we’re at a point in our lives where we have to buckle down and make the call. We’re putting on the slacks and suits everyday and realizing we’ve chosen our path and it’s finally time to start making some commitments if we hope to get anywhere. It’s God-damn terrifying.

I will take care of your eyes until my own give out on me. I will be there as long as you are still willing to talk to me and receive me during visiting hours.

I will escape with you.

-K

A Short Reply

Dear K,

I just got back from that place where we met, and now a big part of me wishes I'd never left. But I had to we all have to, and everyone will. I'm settling into my grown up job, and I think that maybe I'm scheming for an escape. I'm going to bide my time though, build up supplies, so really at this point I guess it is a matter of where do I want to go.

So where do you want to go?

I'm putting together a crew. What if I bought a boat? Would you come and keep my eyes healthy?

We could get everyone that we never get bored with, a short list to be sure, and sail away to wherever, and someday we'd come back to visit the mainland and find that the world had changed while we were away and that after fifty years of sailing into sunsets we'd become younger and tanner than when we first left.

But I don't want to just live on a boat. I want to go inland, and so I'll bring my bicycle and make room for everyone else's bikes too. And speakers, and it will be a whole bright shining barge. We'll sail up rivers and over oceans and call out to other boats in the fog.

But really I don't want to do any of that.
Well I do, at least half of me does.
But I want to do it with somebody,
and not just a crew.

And don't worry that somebody isn't you,

But I do know who, I think it is, but I don't know if she'd ever allow herself the pleasure of just one person's company for a lifetime.

But still. I am planning an escape.

So where do you want to go?

K

spaces between days

Dear K-

You know, I really don’t feel so bad about it. Not as much as I had expected, at least. I’m used to being alone, and now that I am back to being a solitary figure things seem to be progressing along about as smoothly, if not more so, as they were before. It’s given me a lot of time to myself. A lot of time to reflect.

Some people meditate for relaxation and the collection of thoughts. I exercise. It’s my “zen time”. Nothing allows me to better clear my mind than to spend an hour shooting hoops or running laps or cycling. Lately, I’ve taken to swimming laps. There’s hardly any distraction at all beneath those chlorinated aquamarine waters. It is just the steady rhythm of the splash of each stroke and the whooshing bubbles of every exhalation, a repetitive mantra that brings my inner peace. Those quiet, lonely laps have allowed me a lot of time to mull over my life decisions, and in the end I feel okay. I don’t feel super or amazing or on top of the world, but I feel like I’m still a valuable person. I feel like I still have some worth, hidden deep down beneath all the self-loathing and sentiments of rejection.

It’s autumn. I like to sit outside at night and look at the crisp clean stars in the cold evening air and smell the smoke from the fires of some nearby neighbor burning leaves. You know, it’s illegal to burn leaves and organic yard wastes here. The city expects you to take your trimmings, bag them up, and then place them at the side of the road for collection. I know many people have allergies and maybe the smoke is a nuisance to them, but for me, personally, there is hardly a more powerful nostalgia-inducing aroma than that of burning leaves. It stirs recollections of autumns past, memories of raking leaves in my backyard and shaping them into long piles to stretch across the withering grass. I’d arrange the piles to form the floor plan of an imaginary house, within which I would play and pretend to live a fantasy domestic life, until the dog came bounding through the kitchen wall and sent the leaf barricade spewing throughout the dining room. As a kid I’d volunteer at the church to help rake the yards of the elderly. I wasn’t really so keen on community service as I was with having an opportunity to hang out with my friends who also signed up for the church volunteer group. We’d have raking races and throw armfuls of leaves at each other, squealing with delight as we took an hour to complete what would normally take only about twenty minutes worth of hard work. There was the time when we accidentally broke one of the rakes when we were pretending they were swords, and I had to spend the rest of the afternoon using an old broom as a replacement. At least we usually got rewarded with cookies and Kool-aid at the end of the day.

I love this season. I’m trying to be a better person now. Nothing can be done about the past. Nimam obzaluje. When I fall asleep at night I now rest with the knowledge that I will never have to choke on his flesh again. He won't make me feel sick inside and he won't take advantage of my good nature. But I will also never feel his tender embrace, laugh with him, or smile and feel at ease just to be beside him. At parties, I was so proud just to be sitting with him. But now I can no longer feel that peace. There is nothing but agitation and a desire to be alone.

But I still miss the good days.

Tell me about your week.

Still occasionally lonely,
-K

i get world sick

Dear K-

I tried to take your advice. There used to be such a fire in my life, and I used to feel like I was somebody. But lately I have felt empty and dull like a light bulb with a burned out filament, although still warm to the touch, hinting at what used to be, I no longer radiate with such ferocity and intent. Wasn’t I the one who came from an asphalt cradle and chewed batteries as a teething ring? I used to fight, I used to feel a purpose.

This weekend I tried to fight again. I didn’t want it all to fade away from disuse and neglect. I canceled my plans and drove out to see my love. But it was already too late, and he was no longer in love with me. I can’t accurately explain how it feels to sit in a room with someone who won’t look you in the eye, knowing what they are thinking but are too cowardly to admit. The love is gone. Every action brought his anger; even comments that used to be jokes were suddenly uncalled-for insults, and every footstep I took was on the wrong soil. I tried to fight, though. I bought him dinner, cooked him breakfast, smiled at him and held his hand in public. I tried to do everything I thought I should to keep him. But it was too late, and instead he just used me. When it came time for me to load my suitcase and drive away, he wouldn’t kiss me anymore and I left him there, lying on his bed and reading a book of poetry.

It’s over. As much as I wanted to turn left and continue on with him, I went straight. Maybe this was my psych-out maneuver. Everyone believed I was going to turn left- hell, I had even convinced myself, but in the last moment I realized that was not the correct decision. I have to go straight. We have to split our paths.

So now, I have a new bag of memories to pull out in the springtime when I feel nostalgic. There are no regrets, but I do miss many things. He was part of the reason I chose America, and now I’m floundering here alone, rejected, and confused.

As you said, every morning the sun comes up, and every evening the sun goes down. Let the sun make a few more cycles and I’ll begin to feel dull again and it will be okay. Eventually I will look back and perhaps I will say, “That was a fun time, but I made the right choice.” Perhaps I will always wonder what life would be if I had turned left. But I can’t dwell on that. There are new adventures ahead, and soon I will stumble upon them. But for the moment I must spend a few days dragging myself forward, forbidding myself to glance back at that fork in the road, letting the side of my shoe scuff the dirt up in scattered clouds because I don’t want it to settle because I can’t settle. At least, not yet.

At a steady pace,
-K