Letter - speculation of departure

During the family video call this week I reiterated how wonderful it had been to explore multiple forms of communication with friends scattered all around the world. Then I recalled this letter, to a friend whom I co-organized the first Non-Virtual Film Festival (Nashville, 2021) with and had some incredible moments together.


Dear friend,

Let’s lay out the worst case scenario first. Nothing’s been finalized yet. Those we reckon as self-explanatory evidence do not reveal anything but plain rules, rules that were tragically redundant to our mundane everyday beings and therefore urged to be reset once more—tragical enough as in what we’ve wasted much. Had I outgrown you sooner I would’ve realized in time that at this moment you could be dead. Or I could be dead. We could both be dead from the opposites of a mirror, pulling apart a perfectly symmetrical fellowship that couldn’t help swirling into a void battleground. But what I irresistibly came to believe in was: we were more than alive, breathing and blinking so vibrantly and disgracefully still, wherein the distance between us had been immortal.

During the second videocall she blurted out “you might as well call her mother”. The next day Jill and I went on a trip to Holland and I finally had a chance to see Lake Michigan. Jill’s sister runs a veterinary clinic in town and as we walked along the water, they took pictures of me (something I would neither propose nor refuse) and I was, as if paralyzed, throated down by an instant strike of nausea. The lake was indeed enormous, my friend, as boundless as an ocean to the eyes of us but not of seagulls. From afar I counted swimmers popping out their heads and shoulders, twinkling and trembling through sunlight amidst the vast blue. Our missing friends, I thought, always belong to the ocean, as Bolaño would suggest.

Greg and I won three rounds of cribbage in a row and I was too proud to not let them know that I had never been a serious card player. The fourth game, which we lost so close and statistically balanced out my beginner’s luck at last, relieved me from the notion of being the best cribbage partner. Too often I got startled by Greg’s smile, one time while he was driving us to the church, another at the basement as he sneaked out an ice-cream bar. Equally impossible as losing something you are never part of is approaching someone you have not yet broken away from—again you see the symmetry of my blessings and struggles: the former assertion exempts me from any incoming nostalgia for this far-too-good family; the latter wakes me up from nightmares of rage and regret where I’m not an outwitted and violent kid. I was down on one knee at the worship as an atheist, remember?

A thunderstorm was right above us on our way back home this afternoon. Around 1pm it was dark as midnight but the rain was, even I didn’t intend to notice, too brief and forgiving.

c
2021.9.13