emily violet

...is the most beautiful wonderful best friend anyone could ever ask for. I have remarkable, inspirational friends. They're all going to make really great mothers too (some of them already are).


Emily and I have had so many adventures over the years-- we were both so klutzy as kids. We'd do somersaults into furniture, fall down stairs, dance like spazzes. We'd sit in her driveway with the back hatch of her parents suburban open, just hanging out, doing nothing or listening to the car stereo, pretending we were old enough to drive.


It was with Emily, not even my dad, when I first listened to the Beatles "White Album." It was at her house, on the golf course in her back yard where I had my first kiss. And where I learned to play pool. And to make a perfect salad. And to appreciate good coffee. And good bed linens. And to laugh with total freedom and lack of concern for what anyone thought about it. And to write long letters-- my first one was to her when we were in a fight, but I never gave it to her.


 For a long stretch in junior high and high school, we were indistinguishable on the phone. We sounded alike, our mannerisms were the same, our humor the same.


At her wedding, I quoted my favorite passage from A Separate Peace (which, along with A Prayer For Owen Meany, are the best novels about friendship ever written) where Gene realizes that Phineas had never seen any separation between the two of them. That he saw Gene as an extension of himself. Which has always been true for me of Em. Her happiness is my happiness and her struggles I share with her too.


The lovely Corinne took these amazing photos of Emily and TL. They made my day!

rainy sunday

it's a rainy sunday here in NYC and I'm off to a bridal shower. It's going to be a big season of weddings this year. I think I'm prepared. But it's days like this that remind me of what I have to look forward to... dreamy drizzly days in warm socks with tea and books and writing and friends. Five months from right now, I'll be Scotland. :)

photo from Corinne's Blog

astoria park

...in the winter vs. in the spring. Even though I lost my keys there on my run today, (that's what I get for putting them in my bra) no matter the season, I love Astoria Park!

Last night, I went on a boat concert/cruise with for my old pal, Dion Roy. (Aly & Erin were there too) I wanted to post a picture of us from the old days. Which leads to my plans for tonight-- I'm reliving my early days in NYC with a WMDs concert at Rockwood. Ah those good old days. Although, in this pic of me, Dion & Aly, you can still see the last traces of my black eye. Because I'm facing un-injured side to the camera, you can't really see the big gash in my head. Which is a story for another time. A little story we like to call "Drugged, Mugged & Slugged." Anyhow, off to enjoy the rest of this beautiful Saturday!

spring in NYC makes you never want to leave

Like Getting Hit By an Ice Cream Truck

It seems like everyone I know has been getting kicked in the teeth lately. All my emotions seem to be pouring out to my friends who need all the support they can get. So much so, that I don’t seem to have any feelings about my own life. Only on behalf of others (which, to be honest, is a real nice change of pace!) Learning about people’s struggles is a truly truly humbling thing. I mean, suffering is suffering is suffering and it’s pretty much futile to sit around comparing people’s suffering. But from amazing parenting of preemies, to divorces, to volunteering in Haiti,  to beautiful new babies being born, it’s hard to take my own suffering too seriously. Because really, it’s a mixed bag. The compelling part about life (this is such a writer thing to think) is how nothing ever seems to fall on one side of the fence or the other. The gray areas, the catch 22s, the lowest lows paired with highest highs. (It’s negative capability, man!)

It’s like getting hit by an ice cream truck.

Which reminds me of this that I wrote & experienced pretty much 3 years ago to the day at Erin’s wedding weekend. I'm sending it out now as a dedication to my friends who are struggling. 
A tough critic of mine at the time read this blog and said, “You know, Ryann, I disagree with almost everything you think. But the way that you think… you might be my hero.” I was always unsure if that was meant as a compliment or not, but I chose to look at it as a compliment. Just like I choose to focus on the ice cream and not the broken bones.

Enjoy.

Originally dated may 3^rd, 2007

Like Getting Hit By an Ice Cream Truck

Last weekend, I was so full, and my heart was so pressed upon, I could scarcely breathe. Even now, recalling it, I have a hard time coping with the amount of love that flows through me, and have often not known the way to give it.

Sometimes, I feel like the world asks a lot of me. And I was angry at the world for denying me the one thing I felt for sure I was meant to have. To be sure, the one thing I desired most. This weekend, I felt like the world was really rubbing my nose in it. In all that love I have for Erin and Joel… and Emily… and Tex. Exploiting my love of Erin, and using it as another way to break my heart about Tex and wave it in my face that my love was unrequited. I had a few moments there where I somehow managed to forget how magical and miraculous the moment I was experiencing was...

What I failed to really realize, what I could not believe because it had never been told to me in a way I could believe, is that my love was never unrequited. It was always returned, but in his way, not mine. 

My dad brought up something that next morning when I talked to him. When my grandmother Mary married her new husband, after my grandfather died, she said, "It's not in spite of my love for your Grandfather that I can love Tom, it's because of it."

What I realized is that for the last 8 years, I have been operating under the mistaken conclusion that because my heart hurt so bad, that meant that it must be broken. That I must be damaged goods in some way.

And while the ache was real, rather than being broken, it was actually just the growing pains of a heart stretching larger. The more I loved him, the more it pushed at the seams, the more it hurt. The more I think on it, the more I can't help but grow, as well, in my gratitude for that love. 

And now, I think that a great love is not someone to overcome or get over at all, but wellspring that allowed me to realize how capable of loving I really am.

That I will love someone more than I can even imagine not because I overcame my love for Tex, but because I never did. Because I refused to stop. And why should I want to? And if I did, could you even still call it love?

No, instead, I would just grow with the years, and transform its shape for the present. For years and years, I thought I had to get rid of my love for him in order to really love someone else. That I had to clean out my heart in order to make enough room.

But this weekend, I learned how much room there is in my life. My underlying fear in stopping loving him, ending my book, ending ANYTHING…was that I would lose this amazing presence in my life. I realize now that instead of expunging in order to find the love of the rest of my life, I need to build on it. Use the love I learned to give as the foundation for love in the rest of my life. A spring board. Because I have loved and still love him, I love. 

I love my life, and my place in the world and the place I know I will get to. Because I loved one person, it is PROOF I will love more.

...now, to pick myself up, scrape off the gravel, and start eating all the ice cream that is all over the street. Yum.

monarch of the glen

I've been obsessed lately with an amazing Scottish television show, "Monarch of the Glen." It's campy, it's sooooo 2000, and yet it's filled with astute social commentary on the clash of modern Scotland with it's traditional past. Originally, it aired on BBC Scotland, and now thanks to the wonders of Netflix, I can watch it in my robe on my laptop each evening.


See the above segment where the aging old laird of the Glenbogle castle & his aristocratic neighbor friend, Kilwillie, (played by fantastic Oscar winning writer/actor Julian Fellowes) try to consume a 30 year old cask of single malt whisky that they'd tucked away in the 70's.


The young Laird, Archie, is trying to modernize the property (not to mention, keep the place from drowning in debt) so he's hidden the cask from his father so he can sell it to Sotheby's after learning it went for about $600 a bottle (20 bottles in the cask.)


The kind of RIDICULOUS caper Kilwillie & Hector go on (or launch the cask on) all while Archie trying to interview new ranger candidates is just such a delight. Oh, the leisure classes. It's literally like the cask has a mind of it's own. I particularly like all the foley treatment gurgling sound effects they've added as the scotch barrel rolls all over the Highlands. Amazing.


If you love some quirky screwball Scottish comedy (juxtaposed with those tough culture-at-a-crossroads kinds of questions) then you might love "Monarch of the Glen" as much as I do :)

addicted to florence + the machine

I have this feeling that Florence is so delightfully weird in real life. She's got all these random covers floating around. Many of them from her myspace page where she's basically just karaoke-ing it up in her dressing room. I recommend her freestyling on En Vogue & Madonna.

babies & james Part Two

Those nights alone with James Taylor seem to last forever. The hours between midnight and eight never used to seem so endless. She remembers nights alone in her bedroom with Karen. Her sister would sleep and Mom would sleep and everyone would sleep. Dad was probably sleeping, too, but he wasn’t down the hall like the rest. But Deb would stay awake as long as she could because she could hum her songs and not work at anything. When everyone who knew her was asleep, she was anybody she wanted. She was a millionaire or married to one and draped in jewels. And she gave to charities. And she never went back to Oregon. She was sixteen and she was timeless. But these nights in California weren’t like back in Oregon. She couldn’t lie still for hours anymore. She had to move. In all her hours with James, she felt she must have aged five years each night.  

*     *     *

      

ain't no doubt in no one's mind that love's the finest thing around

"I didn't have a home, but that doesn't keep you from being homesick sometimes."

Here's the intermission from "Babies & James" so I feel like it's only appropriate that we get a little bit of this.


Indeed, I feel like I can't talk about my parents or my family without talking about James Taylor & this song in particular. When I talk about the music of my life, I talk a lot about how Duncan Sheik was the first music I ever chose for myself that's stayed with me my whole life. Jimmy T is the other book end to that. James Taylor is the first music passed down to me. It's the first music I can remember.


I end up telling this story a lot too, as part of my personal mythology, although sometimes I wonder if my mom just made it up-- that Rick Marotta, JT's drummer, told my parents when I was six months old that when I was 16, he was going to marry me. I think it worked out better that he didn't, but JT's music is certainly, permanently in my orbit.


He's kind of like a kaleidoscope for me, in that-- move the pieces around just a little-- a different day, a different version-- and he can remind me of each one of my family members for different reasons.


Most importantly, the thing about JT, the thing that I think I look for more than anything else in musicians is a kind of interpretive story telling. Details. Ad libs. The extra things. I believe that the soul lives there. And for me, he's the tops. The number one interpreter of songs.


Oddly enough, one of my favorite versions is with the Dixie Chicks, (they wouldn't let me embed) some other truly fine interpreters of songs. For fun, I also recommend JT's live version from Edinburgh Castle for Hogmanay 1997

The conclusion of "Babies & James" tonight when I get home...

babies & james Part One

"It's been a holy host of others standing around me/still I'm on the dark side of the moon/and it seems like it goes on like this forever, oh/so you must forgive me/ if I'm up and gone to Carolina in my mind"

Fumbling through tapes without cases, Deb snatches at that one: yeah, the live album. Her vodka and cranberry will leave a ring mark on the stereo when she rests it there to begin her dance. On side A, she starts with “Carolina in My Mind,” her favorite. When she listens to James Taylor, Deb can remember back to a time when she wasn’t thirty years old and strapped to a sick little kid. She moves her head back and forth, stumbling over her own feet some, partly because she has had a few drinks, but mostly because she is into it. Touching her short, thinning hair, Debi moves all around and turns the volume up all the way up.

      James Taylor makes her think of sex. Maybe it was just that all music, every song seemed to be about her. She thinks about how so many songs have captured her emotions, or inspired her emotions. Sweet Baby James is calling that raw sensation from within her, and with every blast of Russ Kunkel’s drums, she can feel that Carolina summer of 1976 when she had it all. 

*      *      *

the weariness, the fever & the fret

"Didn't know I could sing, did you?"

Okay, so short story time. I'm going to start posting "Babies & James," the short story I wrote my freshman year of college for Marsha Recknagel (I've since re-written several times.)


It was probably the first thing that made anyone pay attention to me as a writer (and lord knows, I've just been asking everyone to pay attention my whole life!). I basically had to fight my way into that class freshman year, since Marsha normally didn't take freshmen. But of course, audacious and unstoppable as I was at the time, I walked into that teeny tiny classroom in Fondren Library armed with the fat block of 300 pages that was my first novel and a speech about why she should allow me in. 


She spent the whole class talking about how she wouldn't take freshmen (I suppose, really, what do most freshman have to write about) and gesticulating with her very distinctive hands.


Anyhow, after the class was over, I waited and slammed my book down on her podium and gave my speech. Another freshman, this kick-ass kid named Rolf, also stayed. When I was done rambling, Rolf added, "yeah, I want to get in too." And she just let us! All that and the whole thing was just a deterrent for the meek!


That was a great class. This story actually came out of an assignment to write a story from the point of view of someone we hated. At the time, I thought I hated my mom, so this was originally a first person pov story. There was a lot it gained from that, but ultimately, most of what was so sad of the story you missed out on, because you had to be able to see Deb both as she sees herself and how she really is. A lot of this is true, but I've taken a lot of liberties as well.

It's a long one, so I'll be posting it in installments over the next couple of days. I'll leave you with this image for now, before I post the first installment. It's my favorite picture of my mom. Everything I like to remember about her is distilled down to this one image.

inside out

I love music for many of the obvious reasons that almost everyone loves music. Chiefly, that it can manipulate our emotions. But for me, I think it’s even more concrete than that. Certain sounds, certain songs actually simulate exact feelings for me. Or specific people. I have said since the moment I first heard Grizzly’s Bear’s “Two Weeks”  that the song sounds like a how I want all of life to feel.

Some songs sound like how certain people make me feel. 

I like Katie Costello. I suppose she’s not a visionary or anything. She’s not reinventing the wheel. But I think (especially for being about 20 years old) she’s a good song writer with that soothing female-voiced indie pleasantness that I like to be surrounded by. Why? I suppose that’s what my life actually does sound like to me.

But this song, “Inside Out” is my favorite of hers. Largely because it sounds to me the way it feels hanging out with this one friend of mine. Familiar, like your own mind—"was that your thought or mine?"—but surprising to you, in a way you didn’t know you could be surprised. Blushing almost.  Lyrically, yes, but more than that. That lightly bouncing cello, intense but not,  a swell, a recede, a sort of mellow turmoil, that pushing up against the boundaries of your heart just a bit, a teeny bit of kazoo for fun. And what a lovely service, to know that when life makes it that you can’t always hang out with the people you want to, you can almost simulate the feeling. It’s not even that you like the song that much. It’s that you like the feeling.

I don’t like this live version as much as I like the studio version (kazoo missing) so I highly recommend just getting her album if you’re into it. 

photos from Katie Costello Music

O, for a beaker full of the warm South, full of the true

Less than 2 months until the amazing Steamboat Springs Band Reunion in Myrtle Beach. My uncle has spent the last few months taking the tape from recordings in the mid '70s during their hey-day and  digitizing them, such as the above recording.


I'm excited about this reunion for many reasons. It's a vacation, it's family reunion, it's Summertime in the South. 

But beyond that, I feel like it's a window into my father's life. A window into my family as a whole, actually, since the success my dad had with this band was kind of a family affair. That's when my parents met. Through my maternal aunt. On my dad's side, it brought out parental fear from my grandparents (which I suppose all parents have when their children are in the arts-- how will they eat???-- hahaha). That conflict seemed to bond them or define their relationships. It got my aunt and uncle involved. And if I understand the stories correctly, it seems as though, somewhere at the height of it all, it brought the whole family together. And I think they all felt proud and part of something. At least, that's how it goes in my head. 

But considering that my dad is my best friend, it's weird to think that I never met my best friend as a young man. I can see him in my mind. But I'd like to have met him.

And now it feels like I can. 

I'm on itunes

We've made it! Steven & I were  honored to be a part of such a fun and meaningful theatre community project, The Battery's Down, created by our hilarious friend, Jake Wilson.

Our fun little number, "Video Chat," was in the Season 2 Premiere last April. For a 45 second song, I think Steven & I got a lot out of it. Most of the appeal was visual, so definitely check out the episode especially to see the adorable faces of Andrew, Nina, Jake and Cortney. Andrew's lines in the scene before the song crack me up EVERY TIME!!

And we were honored again to be included as a bonus track on the brand new soundtrack for Season 2. I hate to implore, but please buy this album. I will actually make money if this album makes money. All the songs are written by wonderful theatre writers, some of whom have Pulitzers! And they're all my wonderful friends.

You can buy a hard copy of the album on the Sh-K-Boom Records site. Or if you can't buy the whole album, please buy at least MY SONG-- it's only 99 cents! Thanks in advance :)

And look at all this ink we're getting:
Theatermania!
BroadwayWorld!
Tubefilter!

highlands

Well, I didn't get fame or fortune in old New York. But I did get some mighty fine friends. Even if they do tweet inappropriate and embarrassing (false) things about you....sigh.... here are some highlights from highlands.

above photo by Peter Sheik
...and some Bryan Ferry Roxy Music. From one of my most recent favorite film scenes.

american idiot

Tonight, I'm going to see American Idiot at the St. James Theatre. I've heard reviews on both sides of the fence and everywhere in between, but I have a feeling I will like it. That's not to say that I'm going to think it's theatre at  it's best. But I have a feeling it's going to fill a void of a particular kind of show right now that I think Broadway always needs one of-- an angst-y show. A loud show. Something convulsing.


I mean, about half the cast comes straight from my favorite angst-y show, Spring Awakening, (same director too) so I'm sure that says something.


From what I've heard, too, I think Tom Kitt did a phenomenal job on the orchestrations. And who doesn't love great orchestrations, RIGHT?!? And, btw, congrats, Mr. Kitt on your PULITZER effing PRIZE. That little ol' prize has been on my super short list of lifetime goals for about ever, so it's always motivating to see another theatre guy pulling in the big fish. Even though, true to form, the Pulitzer for Drama is less than the others, at $10,000. But hey, I'd take it. You could still say you won a Pulitzer.


Edited: post show-- Tom Kitt is the MVP of this show. And directors aren't writers. That's where I'll stop.

I highly recommend working with geniuses

I love my writing partner, Steven Jamail, so much! And this is just a prime example of why. How adorable is this mashup of "Telephone Hour" from Bye Bye Birdie and Lady Gaga/Beyonce's "Telephone"?

And I have to say that every time I see the Rosie's Broadway Kids perform, I am blown away. And Steven is the musical director of the program & did the fantastic arrangement you are about to watch! Wait for the uber cutie at 1:57 and prepare to have a toothache.

In other news, tonight is my birthday party at Highlands, the amazing Scottish bar in NYC. I am hoping for amazing evening filled with Scotch and friends. ALSO! It's Scottish week here in NYC! Who wants to come to parade with me tomorrow?? xoxo

a city that lives in the imagination of the world?

   “Those guys who wrote Deuteronomy, you think they had to deal with this,” Simon joked. “ ‘Ooh, there’s not enough parchment.’ ”

Pretty much everyone who knows me knows of my extreme love of The Wire. I say a lot that there are only two TV shows-- The Wire, The West Wing.

But now, it turns out there might be a third television show worth giving a shit about. Treme is from the creators of The Wire. Their same brilliant brush strokes, but about musicians instead of drug dealers?? And in New Orleans?? I vote YES.

When I was in college, I had the most lovely boyfriend from New Orleans. I loved going there to visit his family. I loved how the streets were confusing, I loved the pastel, the low-hanging moss, I loved the drive-thru hurricane stands. I loved the houses. You KNOW I loved the houses. 

Something about New Orleans made it seem like the lovable, well-adjusted illegitimate child of my two regional parents, the old South & Las Vegas. 

There was a great article in New York Mag this week by Emily Nussbaum about David Simon (Photo: Peter Hapak)my favorite irascible creator. I loved it. Made me even more excited for this Sunday, when it premieres. But I especially liked this little section:
When I get back home, I send Simon my question again: Why create drama, not documentary?

He writes a long note back. “We know more about what Huey Long represented and the emptiness at the core of American political culture from reading Robert Penn Warren than from contemporary journalistic accounts of Long’s reign. We know more about human pride, purpose, and obsession from Moby-Dick than from any contemporaneous account of the Nantucket whaler that was actually struck and sunk by a whale in the nineteenth-century incident on which Melville based his book. And we know how much of an affront the Spanish Civil War was to the human spirit when we stare at Picasso’s Guernica than when we read a more deliberate, fact-based account. I am not comparing anything I’ve done to any of the above; please, please do not presume that because I cite someone else’s art, I claim anything similar for anything I’ve done. But I cite the above because it makes the answer to your question obvious: Picasso said art is the lie that allows us to see the truth. That is it exactly.”  --Emily Nussbaum

 

how can love survive in such a graceless age?

I've been thinking a lot about responsibility these days. About the things we say to each other, promise to each other. And then what we do after we make those promises. Whether its a few weeks down the line or few years. I wonder if people know what it means to to be accountable anymore.


I sort of feel like our fixation on happiness has made "but I'm not happy" as the ultimate fly the coop excuse. And you can reneg on any promise you have made by saying you aren't happy. It's nice because it can get you out of ANYTHING. Your marriage, your soon to be born baby, your job...any commitment you might have made is optional, conditional on whether it's making you happy every minute of the day. Completely forgetting that-- You and You alone are responsible for your happiness. And, shit dudes, sometimes, you have made yourself responsible and accountable for and to others. It's not just about your every childish whim about what will make you happy.


If you keep doing that, you'll jump from situation to situation never being happy. Because what makes you truly happy is expanding within the commitments you have made. Growing with the people you are accountable to. And there is happiness in knowing you are person of your word. That you honor your responsibilities.


In this day and age, I wonder how I am ever supposed to believe the word of any man I meet. How I might even consider putting a fraction of my trust or well being in the hands of a generation of men who have absolutely refused to be men, take responsibility, honor what they say, what they promise, what they vow. Nothing seems to mean anything to them. Except their own priorities. And aren't all those responsibilities so INCONVENIENT? How am I supposed to believe that they won't run out at the worst possible time?


Certainly, there are times when you move past a place, a job, a relationship. But there's a classy exit strategy, if that's what you need. One that honors each of the experiences you're graduating from. If you don't-- if you cop out of everything, sacrificing your word & your honor so you can pursue every little thing you want, you will never ever be happy. And worse than that, you'll be a coward.


I could live with a lot of disappointments in life, but I could never live with being a coward.

“The really important kind of freedom involves attention, and awareness, and discipline, and effort, and being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them, over and over, in myriad petty little unsexy ways, every day.”

winter always turns to spring

Probably the best birthday ever. I can't believe how many people were so sweet to me today. Sweet Morgan Karr bringing me licorice & diet coke. Bebhinn got me the most beautiful bracelet in the world! Everyone's lovely (and abundant-- almost overwhelmingly so) comments, phone calls, etc. Promises, Promises was also the best time I've had on Broadway all season. And couldn't have asked for better company.


So many people are struggling right now. And there are lots of examples of why it's easier, safer, less messy to avoid serious attachments to anyone. But it's days like today to remind me, and hopefully everyone, that we're better off for all that we let in. And like the man, Nichiren, said:

"We are as if in winter, which never fails to turn into spring. Never have I seen or heard of winter turning into autumn."

From the Gosho.


My thoughts are with my very wonderful, special, fighting friends. Especially Miss Emily.

Happy Birthday to Me!

I don't have much to say today. It's a beautiful day. I'm seeing Promises, Promises in the Front Row with my lovely friends tonight to celebrate. And I'm feeling happier than I've felt in probably about a year. Maybe it's just Spring talking, but I think 28 is going to be a great year!


Special shout out to my birthday week comrades, Amy Weber (April 1st) and Bebhinn Timmins (April 4th)!


I'll leave for today, something that makes me very happy: Keats's home in Hampstead Heath. :)

children & art

Just about one month until the amazing Tigerlily (TL) is born. I’m getting really excited. I’ve gotten her some of the cutest things ever from Mountain Aven Baby—check it! http://www.mountainavenbaby.etsy.com

And in the midst of that excitement, I get the news from Erin (I called it completely, about a week ago, before she mentioned anything) that she, too, is going to have a baby!

I do get genuinely more excited about my friends’ children than I used to. Although, it’s matched by my sense of feeling left behind. Which is certainly not a feeling I feel towards my friends, but towards myself. Or perhaps, just about my life.

I think about my choices all the time. I wonder, even, if it’s wise to leave New York at this stage. I’m so eager to be somewhere else, but already, the things I’m going to miss out on by not being in New York are starting to stack up. Productions I want to see, concerts, opportunities. Does leaving now mean the end of me writing for theatre? If I wanted to come back, would it be the same?

But I just feel, that if I don’t get out right now, at least for a little while, that I’ll never devote enough time to writing to get anywhere. And I’ll keep running on a wheel trying to scrape some kind of life by on an arts salary. And worst of all, that if I stay in New York, I will never get married or have a family.

I saw RED on Tuesday, a play about the painter Mark Rothko and I keep thinking about it. Painting is the one art form that I don’t seem to get. I don’t have the kind of visceral reaction to paintings that some do. Indeed, the idea of spending $50,000 or whathaveyou on a painting is downright ludicrous to me. Maybe it’s because I’m not so much a visual person. A painting could never make me feel what a song does or a poem does. The way old books feel in your hands or smell. (I just got a 1899 copy of the full poems and letters of Keats and I’m in heaven with the thing.)

The only way I’ve ever really gotten a window into the emotions of it all is as a metaphor for something else, or—as is the case with RED or Sunday in the Park With George—as the topic of something philosophical through words and music. I see the point with the permanence of a painting. That you make something that wasn’t there before. It’s a fixed image, whereas live events, even songs have a beginning and an end.

I  guess it’s just one more way to view that I live my life with my mind and not my body or even my eyes. And I might have a hard time having a family all in my mind. 

A Rich Inner Life

Speaking of letters... 

I go back to them all the time. Not just because of Keats. Or because of my compulsion to write them. But because, at least from one dear, art-filled friend, I have received letters worthy of reading, re-reading, savoring, feeling that someone saw me. 

I remember being 16, 17, 18 and waiting for these letters from what is surely a classical, romantic 19th century kind of friendship. The kind of friendship the modern day would call a stranger. Or an acquaintance. But on a very foggy day in Berkeley, I made a friend for life, even if I did only see him twice a year if I was lucky. A kindred spirit of philosophy and thought and clownishness. 

Mostly, I felt like an alien growing up. I think, actually, he might have been the first person I ever met that indicated there was a whole other kind of people out there in the world who were like me. 

His thing was never even so much about language or eloquence or whatever (not that those were ever missing) but his thing is something else entirely. It’s a point of view. An order. An interpersonal specificity that most people just aren’t capable of, or don’t take the time or energy to create. He can hone in on whatever is uniquely magical about anything.

He took me across the university campus in Arizona to show me his favorite tree, which was like a gigantic rose stem. Teenage boys just don't DO that.

One day, I had a letter that started like this: "Do you know who the Sugarcubes are? They're an Icelandic pop group that Bjork used to front. If you don't know them, I'm sure that they must know you. They had an album in the late 80's called 'Life's Too Good' and I feel certain they wrote it about you."

This among others that I don't have memorized, but remain in a box in my Dad's basement, are the best letters I have ever received or hope to receive. No one has ever said things as nice as he has said to me and about me. No one.

I am so lucky to have him return to my life, at this new transitional time in our lives. Lucky to still be receiving his letters. Lucky that we always seem to show back up, find a new way to communicate when needed most. I remember my theory of orbits. And am so happy he appears to be in mine for good. During this tumultuous time-- for us both-- I hope we can remember the idealistic curly haired blonde twins we were over ten years ago.