Dear E.:
I wanted to tell you something, but I wondered whether I should text it? — call to say it? I’d never email it. It’s a problem these days. We have so many ways to communicate, so, which one?
You know of my history with letters. I believe they are often the best way to say a thing. It’s tough to think, though, now. Few people have the time to write a letter — even fewer the time or desire to read one.
I realize, too, it’s an entirely selfish choice. I like to write letters and, worse, think I am good at it! If you read this, however, I hope you will confirm my decision. Anyway, the thing is done.
As I told you recently, I have begun writing again: two screenplays, one autobiographical. To do it, I’ve had to remember things — things I’ve done and felt.
For example, the other day, I was driving, purposelessly. While driving, I was listening to a song I loved from a time I loved when with a woman I loved.
I felt it all again, the hydroptic weight of happiness, hope, hedonism — what you feel while eating ice cream on a stoop in August with your lover’s bare legs in view.
In that moment, I did not know if I was here or there, now or then, me or he — he being my younger self by half. You know my answer: I was both, all.
And, again.
I thought of her, us. Holding her from behind, my chin on her head, a totem, each smirking in different directions, single mindedly, a physical poem, a chord.
When I was with her, I was fully with her — and thus will always be. I lived it, and now it is in me: it is me. All experiences become us. Thankfully, there are more good than bad.
They are printed into you, like indentations in a wooden desk. Just as I will always be able to write a letter even if I think, like I did for two years, that I couldn’t anymore.
To be whole, you must relive everything. You must practice this, with the ruthless discipline of a first violinist or the lunatic reel of a toy pianist, but you must.
(I practice a lot. I daydream at work.)
To be healed is to be who you are, completely.
Be whole.
Be healed.
Be you.
When you finally feel up to it, consider writing about it.
A letter will do fine.
:Ever, D.