The wind blows tonight from out at sea, and the 20 something with the fake tits is not for you, but her outfit looks better even though they feel like sandbags and make teepees when she sleeps, and there’s the boy with the Gary Matthews problem (20 somethings only have too much time on their hands), and the sand is powder and fails to get hot even under this unfailing sun, and tomorrow the tide will not rise or fall and the frozen cocktails will not fade or melt, and we will walk down this beach again to some place named the Whale’s Tale or Jupiter Joe’s or some such thing, where we will have language struggles with the Slavic waitresses, with bleached blonde hair and bad acne scars, whom will not understand what our order but will think you look like her boyfriend, at home across another ocean, or just down the beach, we do not know, and we’ll pretend like life could be like this forever, and for better or worse we will wish such dreams, somewhere in this world, could possibly be true, at least for a few minutes...
It’s an hour past midnight in Lake Claire, and way over in Candler Park you are fast asleep, have been for hours, perhaps alone, perhaps with someone else. Perhaps in those dreams your heart rises up through the ether and into the sky since you say it has been hanging heavily in your chest as of late. Perhaps sometimes in those dreams I find my way in, as you frequently do in mine. I don’t know if I will ever write anything that is not in some way for, or about, you. The dedication of the first book would read, “For my mom and dad,” and then printed in invisible ink would be “and Grier, wherever you are.” Perhaps I fool myself. I don’t even know if that Grier is really you. It’s funny how you feel like you have lost knowledge of someone if you don’t see them in a couple of months, when some people you can not see for years and you pick up right where you left off. I am not sure that the you that would receive such a dedication would be you at all. I have created such goddesses in my head. You are one, the main one. Athena enshrined in your Parthenon – the one in Nashville. Muses are gods I suppose, and you never should marry your muse. You should bring her gifts, and I guess I have done that. You should feed the muse, but you should never marry her. I still wish to be the fool though. Perhaps tonight it is still cold in the Yaak Valley. There are...
Tonight I am shaving like my father, after the shower in my underwear, briefs to make the experience more authentic, or just because I refuse to wash clothes until the weekend. He asks me today if I can just accept that you are unhappy, to not want to change you, to realize that I am powerless with regards to your dilemma(s). So I play tennis, and sweat through my holy shirt that I have been wearing for days, the mosquitos are out and attack my ankles if I do not move quickly enough. My shin is scratched to a bloody mess, but I fixed my car myself, this weekend I will repair the garbage disposal and take out the trash and wash the counters. My shin will likely be healed by then, and maybe there will be rain, and I guess I will wash clothes, and I will buy more soap too. Before the shave, I walked across the dangerous tiles, naked and soaked, and retrieved the last bar from the bulk supply that I learned from you. I wish I could clean everything before my interest goes away. I always wanted to make you happy. There are things that cannot be cleaned. You will never remember to put a new bar in the shower until you are already in and...
Maybe it’s better like this. I can still write here and not know if you will get it. My frequency will inevitably get less and less, and eventually this will become a museum with little models, and placards and stuffed extinct animal specimen. I hope you are doing well. I hope things are settling for you. I hope that you are happy, or at least on your way there. For me, things still hurt from time to time. The days are better. I can do those with ease. The nights are getting easier too. Even the ones when I don’t gorge myself with friends and phone calls. I talked to Chad tonight and his life is all going to shit. He and Annie have split up, his mother is likely going to jail, and his father is trying to take all the money and the businesses from them all. In light of that, I realize that it is time for me to stop this mourning. My problems seem so little compared to that right now, not to mention what is going on in Africa and the Middle East, but a friend’s woes always bring it home a little better. As hard as it is, and as weird as it sounds, I feel freer now. I am not strapped a solitary version of a happy life that could not exist without you. I think that one could’ve been happy with you. Extraordinarily so. I thought for too long it was the only way. I imagine you have to feel free too now. I imagine my desire, my need, for that...
The Arcade Fire concert was life-changing, despite the crappy venue, one of the highest energy shows ever. Only could have been better if you were there. If you ever get the chance to see them, you must.
And all of the pretty things are here, and you are too. Toto. And you were there too, and you and you and you. And there’s a kid in there, and he’s big, and dumb and kind of scared of what may come after this. I can imagine my little legs tangling with yours, but he’s much taller and handsomer and deserves the permanent spot in your life, your house, your arms. I’ve got my angels too. They love me darling. I want my heart entangled with yours but time and circumstance forbids it now. Once as it was, and always as it should be. I no longer want to drive my car headlong into the side of his now illegally parked car. I accept it as a symptom of my day-to-day life. It all hurts, but less and less. I want your fanny full stop across my face, but I realize that it doesn’t happen that way ever again. Age brings on more nuanced approaches to sexual conduct of that kind. Robert’s love has left him in much the same way that you have left me. She needs more space. She will dangle him around for awhile and take joy in his dangling. He will come out better for it. I saw Jonathan the other night. He asked ME about YOU. I told him to come over and play violin. Music can save us all. Tomorrow night we will keep the car running. Tonight it was rhapsodic fuel of love that made all differences indifferent. I wish you could have been there, but that would have never happened....
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