Letters and Stones

     I typed this letter on my laptop. In order to start up the computer I had to turn off the alarm clock on my table.

     I.   Stones.

     There are many things I have never told you about. Quite possibly because I have never written you letters. Letter writing is a remarkable medium for communication, you know. You create a text, which after the completion embarks on the intellectual journey of its own. Indeed, it lives on its own. You will ask me: why? You will ask me: how? You always ask me questions, which corner me. So you will ask me: why? I will, probably, take off my glasses and stare at the floor for some time, trying to find the answer to your question, as if it is inscribed next to my feet. I will see my shoes, the shoe laces that I still have not learned how to tie properly and I will not say a word. I will say nothing. Nothing. What can I say, when my words – mercenaries, hired for the devastating warfare that has long been under way – often refuse to defend my territory? My words are not darts, with which I accurately pin down every passing thought and sensation onto the wall-kaleidoscope of personal knowledge. I am a bad dart player, you know. I am a good grave keeper, though. My words are wet-gray stone blocks. They top a posteriori thought, pressing it into the ground with all their weight, stifling it, squeezing it into the pale mass of empty diary pages. Yes, my words are gravestones. There is no life underneath them. However, they say that tall birches grow in graveyards. And so I wait for a miracle.

     You will ask me: why do letters live on their own? You will ask me, won’t you? Of course you will! I admire your beautiful and curious mind, you know. I envy the clarity of your thought. Have you ever noticed that when you argue, your soul leans a li ttle bit forward, giving extra force to your voice? You haven’t noticed that. I tell you… You are truly modest. You are what I will never become. You ask me: why do letters live on their own? I stare at the floor. Then I look at you. You look me in the eyes. You are wondering what I am thinking now. You asked me that once before - on the staircase in D.C. I did not answer then. I will answer now. I am thinking about Nothing! Can you imagine? I am thinking about Nothing!
     There are a lot of things I haven’t told you about. Should I say them now? And what will guide me in my confessions: another desperate gasp for the air of compassion, the need to comply with the canons of human sociability? Who gives a damn! I don’t know that after all! And who knows? I can only guess and speak without conviction. I think I am just afraid to lose myself in time and space. I am here to reaffirm myself, turning accidentally to particular pages of my life and picking out lines without clear intent or purpose.
 
     In that city the evening sun gracefully descends onto the horizon, which still is despite the monstrosity of the Beltway. The sunset is in the eye of the beholder, they would say. And to hell with them! What do they know?
      Warm air rises and dies in the sky. The muscles of tense river currents relax, stretching in the coolness of the evening breeze that sets the dreams of my neighborhood free. They walk a lot of dogs here these days. They shit in the beach area now – the small crescent getaway lagoon – an artificial loop of the canal current that leaves trapped water warm. They drive around the surrounding park grounds. They fill the air with pop-music, which is – honestly – a bad addition to the depth of the evening city industrial beat.
      There is a spot on the beach where the canal water is especially clear. The sun disappears, although I am still aware of its presence just as I am aware of the presence of life. I do not react with customary drowsiness to the darkness of the approaching night, of which I am aware just as I am aware of the ever-present death. I can still see the shallow bottom – only two feet deep – with polished stones shining beneath the submerged layer of the emerald light that seems to come out of No-Where. I pick up some stones and lower the chips into the thickness of the water-green, one by one – they fall through the imaginary divide between being and non-being. In my hands the dry stones’ grayness is so real and even warm despite the unfamiliar touch of the rock solid bodies. I see them fall, push through and down slowly towards the bottom – they no longer belong to me. Time leaves them in peace and places us at the opposing ends of the Real. I am only now. And there is no turning away from it, once you reach this threshold, dear. There is no fuckin’ turning away.

     And now I talk to you – at the break of dawn – before the alarm clock resumes its well-paced breathing. You will ask me: why do letters live on their own? They do, because I abandon them in time. Those orphans of mine, those poor bastards remain suspended in the Nothingness of the past – like ugly fetishists, pierced by dozens of hooks of expired meaning. They dream that they are free. And quite possibly they are, for when I return to them, I always, always find new love.

   II. Letters.

    Let us get serious here for a second. What do we hope to accomplish when we send our letters. We certainly socialize. We certainly speak in an uninterrupted monologue and what a blessing it is not to be interrupted! Most arguments should be advanced in rooms rich in silence. Uninterrupted – that’s the key, you know. For when we argue we become artists – we work with clay and the rolls that we crumple in our hands take shape without interruption. Only through deep unhindered concentration we can project remarkable force and clear purpose onto our works as they emerge in their fullness – only then the artist and the clay become one. Let artists work! And only then we notice how captivating uninterrupted work may be. It is in our nature to want to be carried away, to be fooled to some extent, to be tricked – in other words to be convinced. We seek some strange pleasure in the passivity of comprehension. We easily succumb to the tone of somebody’s voice. The simplicity and clarity of certain arguments arrest critical / analytical thinking. The objections raised do not have enough power to become obstacles to the intellectual euphoria of blind belief. We are little children, who look to be comforted and we seek shelter within the stronghold of verbal continuum – attractive in its coherency and evident totality.
     Now it is our turn to exercise the power of uninterrupted speech. We become advocates of a cause. Once you experience the hypnosis of speech, you can no longer remain a dispassionate listener – you are a speechmaker in the making. The force has been exercised on you, so now it is your turn to exercise the force. These are the laws of physics, you know. We enter the world of a monologue – not at all vicious, but selfish enough to be unrestrained in its deepest motives.

      What is the function of a letter? A letter is an instrument – an argumentative strategy. A letter convinces and establishes. A letter commemorates and fixes in time. A letter solidifies in matter – paper and ink – the things that are too elusive to be felt. In order to strengthen the force of letter-sending, humans came up with certain rituals.
      Take a stamp, for example. A stamp seals the finality of the event of speech making. It points to a remarkable emotional and intellectual experience. It is the end of production – the symbol of approval and the affirmation of quality. However, most importantly, it is our eagerness to step forward and become an individual coherency within the logical continuum of a text.
     We write letters to state that we are. Through letters we present ourselves to the world. We remind the world of our being. We sculpt. We draw lines – the shapes of our bodies and souls – in order to prove to the world that we are not merely dust and bones. We are alive. We have souls, which have characteristics that can be recognized and accepted across intellectual boundaries. And when we place a stamp in the upper corner of an envelope, we are prepared to present ourselves as a comprehensible completeness within a written logical construct – a letter. We draw ourselves to be geometrically correct and understandable. We say that our being is proper and memorable. We connect points A-Z – the facts and memories of our lives – into histories of our bodies – the necklaces of our souls. It looks like this: the narrative begins at some point A, reaches out to points B, C and D; it further on splits towards outstanding and possibly non-consecutive points E and F; and so on. We are interconnected and complete within ourselves. A letter becomes a testimony to the reality of our being.
     We put a stamp as a sign of confidence that the trick of letter-sending will produce the necessary illusion. You press the stamp with your finger. This is your determination and zeal. This is your faith, if you will. And I know that you are a true believer. As you seal the letter you believe in the purposeful existence of a link between A and F. You trust the coherency of the narrative which follows the track of logic, unparalleled in its exactitude by anything in the universe. You put your faith in your statement – it must hold true, for the statement is you and you are the statement. The letter represents you. It is your reflection onto the world. It is an undeniable truth that you are. It is a description of what you are. The artist and the letter become one in the silence of the audience that desires a miracle. For they will read your letter if you write one, you know. And they will not only look for you in that letter. They will look to find themselves as well. For if you are, so are they.
       And they will listen to the prosody of your voice. Here is your chance not to be interrupted. Speak out! Search for yourself and if you do, you may be lucky enough to find others.

      I send my letters in the morning, together with the rest of the outgoing office mail. It happens usually around ten in the morning, as my boss hands me a dozen of bills together with several reports marked ‘confidential’: “Mail it, will you?” Of course, I will! I walk down the hallway that leads into the main lobby. Most office doors are wide open at this time. Clerks look at me as I am passing by. Some say “good morning,” some don’t. They envy me, you know. After all – I am on a mission. I approach the mailbox and open the lid. Now it is my turn to lean forward and extend. I reflect onto the unknown. I speak forth in time and space. I am confident. I have been reaffirmed. The mysterious gesture of letter-sending! The stamp and the seal are in place. Takeoff! If you ever search for nirvana – send letters, I tell you. No pills, no fetishism, no suicidal thoughts. If you are not sure about the quality, compensate it with quantity. Spread yourself around – paper heaven asks for no atonement. Paper heaven knows no predestination. Paper heaven welcomes you. It welcomes you together with all those who choose to follow, admiring the strength and clarity of your voice. This is truly a great power – the power of letter sending!

     III. The Geometry in You.
   
     This letter is not only about me, however. I write this letter to you, Eva. In this letter I address you. In order to address you I have to know you, I have to visualize you, I have to imagine you – I have to reestablish your existence in your absence. Is it a contradiction in terms? It will be logical to conclude so. However the power of letter sending takes over. It overwhelms. I have to recreate you here and now. I am an artist at work and this letter is my canvas.
     It is remarkable how attached we all are to drawing and, therefore, to rudimentary geometry.  In order to self-extend from the point of any FedEx box in PA to the point of any mailbox at your law school, I need a straight line, which stands for the travel course. It is a rather easy sketch. However, the scheme gets more complicated as soon as the recipient of this letter is taken into account. For it is not simply towards Minneapolis that I extend. There is a more elaborate plan in place – the more exact point of destination, which has to be successfully defined. In order to write you a letter, I must define you.
      It is here that I fall back again on the primary tenant of my faith – the faith in my knowledge of being – in my knowledge of you. I am already mesmerized by the trick of letter-sending-in-the-making as the mysterious motion takes on its speed. The magician and the audience are fooled alike as the movement commences.

      The straight lines fall in place. The points, captured within the memory-trap are reconciled within the net of textual interrelations. You may not like it, but in the raw depth of my memory you are G…D…B…A…F…C…H…E… It is by virtue of this letter that you become A-B-C-D-E-F-G-H-.... Praise the letter – you become truly rescued from the abyss of my memory. Praise the letter!
   And so the first line is in the position. It is A-B and we are already moving. Can you feel it? Can you? We are all sitting in the auditorium and the faculty is ruining its image for some of the students as they act out a biblical scene in an orgasmic passion, overplayed and pushed to the level of incomprehensible absurdity (obscenity?). So I am bored – I watch my fellow students. I see you – you are attentive. Your eyes smile, but your lips are serious: I admire your confident posture (hey! don’t move! – can’t you see? – I am drawing), your determined appreciation of the art of faith, your critical mind that coexists with unquestionable loyalty to the principles that you hold sacred. Your eyes always smile. They smile even when you are tired and irritated – waiting for me impatiently in a small and expensive bookstore somewhere on the border between Pennsylvania and New Jersey. Oops! It is no longer A-B, dear. It looks more like A-Z. So let us redraw and start all over again at our departure point A. 
      So we are back in D.C. in a fourth floor apartment (?) and you are asking me something about Russian alphabet. Every word is a challenge without insistence. Is there any trust? Is there any doubt? Has there ever been any? I don’t really know. I hide behind Bret Kincade’s back during the afternoon worship. I neglect to recite unfamiliar prayers. I hear you sing – breaking through and from within – you are yet another challenge. Do you ever get tired? Do you ever stop caring? Are you ever at rest? Oh no! It seems that you are restless. You did not notice, but they were all looking at you. I noticed that. How could they restrain the force? How could they not listen to your singing? Competition is not appealing, when it brings only failure.

     They said I was a rebel without a cause. They missed the mark, the person, whatever... My unrest is nothing compared to your uncanny ability to combine faith and resistance. And that is your secret, you know – this is what makes you irresistible. You are the summit of the two natural rivals – allies? – o.k. – the powerful allies that, once harnessed and befriended, can serve for eternity. How did you manage to bring those forces to their knees? Faith and rebellion seem to live side by side in your soul. One may point out that such union is impossible. Hey, what do they know! We know that the union is true. It keeps us alive. This is the necessity, if you will, which has not been yet realized. And if it has been realized it has not been accepted by the majority – the majority of those, who managed to domesticate (tame?) faith alone – that eager servant of human desperation. And you know it was the majority that was so uncomfortable, when you silenced them with the strength and the beauty of your voice.

    Behold! The spinning wheel of intellectual craftsmanship overwhelms. You allow me to speak in silence. I am withdrawn and extended. I reach for Non-being. The spinning wheel picks up rotation. It happens now. I know that the speed is great and I see the propeller freeze for the fraction of a second as it starts spinning backward. The illusion is awesome, indeed. Be careful, though! It seems that letter-sending is make-belief. I am convinced that A-B is the reality and I wish to rely on it as I rely on something, which is true and logically sound. However, I know “A” and I know “B”. I also know that “A-B” is only the product of my desire for letter-sending. 
   
    How about B-C, huh? I have fever and I haven’t been eating for days. It is two in the morning. However, I am warm, despite all my weakness. You allow me to rest my head on your knees. Hours later I would leave D.C. Faith. I look up and see a falling star. Were you really afraid, when you asked me if we should keep walking or whether it would be better to return to the car? I always thought you were afraid then. Now I think you did not hesitate even for a second. And if I had said – “It is too dark, too cold and the climb is too steep” – you would have dragged me towards the stone ruins anyway. Resistance.

    I define you. I define you here and now in your absence. Why do you protest? You will say that I treat you like an object, like a stone, which I shape and miraculously bring to life by means of some geometrical composition. Do you feel that you have been alienated from yourself? I think I understand how you feel.
   What exactly don’t you like about A-B-C? You do not agree that in your case the points should stand in this particular order. You may also say that some of the points may not stand in any relation to each other at all. And you know, this time I will not argue with you, because I understand you. And you do not have to get irritated or speak Portuguese. I really understand you. I really do. I understand your agitation as you face your non-self in the form of a lifeless statuette, put together by the unskillful artist, who nevertheless speaks of a life-like resemblance.

    IV. The Geometry in Me.

     I always thought that my letters would help me reveal and establish my self. Of course there were always address labels and the names of others on the envelopes. However, it was my soul I was after. I always took my letter-sending very seriously, you know. The process required sufficient preparation, hesitation and, finally, a fair amount of resolve. I always thought, that one day – many years later – I would summon the memories of all my letters and those messengers of mine would line up – my past, my present and my future - to form a coherent, understandable whole, which I would recognize as my self. I dreamt of the completeness and it was by means of letter-sending that my dream was to come true.
     And so I dive into the oceans of letter-sending again. I extend beyond and towards in order to fix my self within the material boundaries of the real – this is the foundation of my memory. Seconds later it will become the extension – the real presence – within my past, on the basis of which I will build my future. The core of the great edifice will be my soul-revealed. I extend through letter-sending in order to prove that my soul is real. I extend through letter-sending in order to prove that my soul is within time. I succumb and at the same time rise through uninterrupted speech. You only assist me. I am sorry – it does sound very selfish. However, this is the truth, and I know that you always prefer to hear the truth. That is the way you are. And, unfortunately, this is the way you are within the world of my letter-sending.
 
     V. The Nothing.

     I remember you going through the airport checkpoint. You approached me seconds later – unknown, different and unpredictable. You looked great with the short hair, you know. I should not have worried at all. I had treasured Eva-then. Instead, I should have thought more of Eva-now.
      We got out of the airport terminal. I told you that you had changed. You smiled and asked me: how? How the hell was I supposed to know? I was irritated a little – like a kid who faced something he had no explanation for. How could I know? And it was not only your hair style that puzzled me.

     VI. The Nothing in Me.

      The word is out now, I guess. What you are reading now is an anti-letter. This letter rejects the purpose and the meaning of letter-sending. I deconstruct. I disassemble. I slow down the motion to the point when it is no longer possible to rely on geometry. Are you pleased? You do not know…
      Well, I think I know. I thought about it in California. I could not pin it down, really. I felt it – those distances that separate not only us from them, but also us from us.  It is the contingency of your consciousness, when every next decision is a mystery and every next step is unlike the one you previously made. It is the continuous abandonment of self, when every second is your birthday and every road curve leads to discovery. And can you really map out your next day? Of course, we can keep drawing lines. However, there will no longer be any geometry. There will no longer be any rules. At this point A-B-C-D-structure collapses.
     I guess I learned how to look beyond my letter-sending. Oh, no – do not get me wrong! – I still enjoy uninterrupted speech together with its simple rituals and symbols. In me the legacy of letter-sending lives on. But at the same time I am well aware of what really stands behind the desire to write.
     The truth is – when I write a letter it is not the affirmation of self that I am primarily after. This objective becomes secondary in the face of absence. It will not be a mistake to say that letter-sending is more about rejection than affirmation. It is more the absence of self that I reject, than the presence of self that I affirm. Therefore, for true motives we must turn to Non-Being.

    The truth is – my letters are about distances. The truth is – my letters have always been about stones that slip out my hands and fall into the water. And it is these stones – the separate facts of life – that I am trying to reconcile. They rest on the bottom, untouched by anything vital to my life – logic, for instance. And nothing, I repeat, nothing unites me with those chips, which shine through the divide of Non-Being. Only vision pierces through the water-green. Only my imagination transcends the real, making the unreal possible. Our imagination brings the powers of letter-sending to life. My imagination brings you to life.
   
     I tell you…

     Some one else wrote my letters. As I would seal every other envelope, someone else would always take over my notes, and there was nothing, nothing that I could do to prevent that. I was helpless. I still am. The handwriting was always the same of course, but it was not me who put the pen to the paper. The real author got caught under the weight of the first lines. He never recovered as the falling word-stones squeezed the life out of him. Bad news!
      So what? What do I care? I do care a lot, actually. What makes me complete? What makes me an individual? What makes me a person? How do I know myself? There must be something, running like a thread through my body, uniting all disparate words and deeds into a general coherency and order – a necklace, that I can call my soul-revealed. What is this thread? No, really… What is it?
      Can it be love? Can I unite my self into a soul under the banner of love? I wrote a lot of love letters, you know. So what? Does that make me complete? I doubt that. Actually, I always had a hard time believing in the authenticity of the lines that I remembered. I change. My letters cannot keep up with me. My letters cannot understand me. I cannot understand my letters. All those promises that I made, I tell you… How could I? And did I learn any lessons? Hardly so! I would say I did not. Every time there was a clean slate. Every time there was a fresh start. I did not mean it, I swear. Well, let’s leave the sad story for some other time.
     Can it be memory? Can I unite my self into a soul in the name of memory? There were so many things in my life that I should have never forgotten. But I forgot, nevertheless. I did not mean it, I swear. The memos that I wrote… So what? Does that make me complete? Can the recognition of an obligation redeem me? I doubt that. I do not doubt my forgetfulness, though. They say that forgetfulness is common to all. I can tell you now that forgetfulness is my faithful companion that shows me Nothing.
      
    The stones rest on the bottom, shining forth and through. The water-green surrounds me now. It is in Nothingness that I am suspended, like another written composition of expired meaning. I see them all – my letters – those former selves of mine – living independently in the past. I wanted to become a unity in time. However, I am only now. And that is the truth. Those letters… We are worlds apart.
    I do not know myself. I am objects, united by Nothing. I am the contingency within the present. I am another stone, which is to fall in an instance – another letter, sealed in an envelope – another attempt to fix myself within the real – only this time without continuity – this time as an independent presence within my past.

   VII. The Nothing in You.

   “In individuals who also have an autobiographical self – the sense of personal past and anticipated future also known as extended consciousness – the state of feeling prompts the brain to process emotion-related objects and situations saliently.”
   
     Some facts cannot be united.

     Do I know you? You are the memories of the past, that I recall admiring the sunset in yet another home-town. I leave you there – at the threshold of incomprehensibility. Is there a material place that we can think of? Yeah, I guess so. It is somewhere on the rocks of the Pacific Coast. Is it on the halfway between Philadelphia Airport and the City? Who knows?
     I take you in my arms. I warm you now. The Night is here. I ask you to look up. Do you see the night sky in the glory of its stars? Remember the necklace of my soul? Remember the ambition and charisma of letter-sending? Do me a favor – forget about all that. The necklace has been torn – do you see its pearls scattered across the sky? Do you see the stars? No more geometry… No more uninterrupted speech… Only silence.
     It is now that I lower you into the water. Oh, no! Do not be afraid. It is not cold at all. It is not deep here either – we will not cross the six feet mark. Not now at least. I see your face like I have never seen it before. You pass the line of the water-green. Is it a new baptism? You are what I will never become. You are what I am not. You are what I never thought of you. You are truly a mystery. You are in the distance. You are wondering what I am thinking now. You asked me that once before - on the staircase in D.C. I did not answer then. I will answer now. I am thinking about Nothing. Can you imagine that? I am thinking about Nothing that separates you and me. I am thinking about Nothing that constitutes me. I am thinking about Nothing that shines through you – that water-green light, which renders things inanimate and foreign – that overwhelms me as I recognize the fact that you have changed, that you are changing, that you will always change without my knowledge and permission.

     VIII. Letters and Stones.

      A….H…D…Z…S…Q…

      I know you hate me now. It is around seven in the evening and you are tired, leaning against that bookshelf. I sit on the floor. I defy your idea of appropriateness and tact. I have done everything to piss you off today. No, really… I drove at about 100 mph through the mountains as we were rushing to the morning service. Then we drove across the whole state to see the stupid picture gallery. Making matters worse, we drove again to some provincial town with a coffee shop and an old music store. Why? Because I am a restless soul and you are caught in the middle of my storm.

     Do you know when I ate honey bread last time? Long time ago, I tell you… However, it is also all these flowers that make the afternoon air so sweet. The street colors are fading – the storm is approaching. Peace, menace and the fist rain drops on my glasses… You wanted me to be with you. But you are running, as you show me through the flower market. Every gesture is a turning away. I am trying to keep up, though. Or may be it is California climate that’s slowing me down. I should not be thinking of you so much. What for, since you are so close – right here – beside me? Everything is so sweet here. This air is truly unbelievable…

      Time freezes when we walk. It marvels at our unrestrained peripatetic zeal, as we push through the freezing thickness of the night that curled around the Capitol Hill. Death does not recognize us, for in order to arrest our breath, it has to capture our souls. And our souls are elusive and rebellious – like gusts of wind that are storming the streets at this late hour. Who can grasp the essence of the wind? Who will be our Judge? Will they be so fucking dumb as to say that they truly know us? Only time will tell, really… And it is now that time resumes its breathing. I typed this letter on my laptop. In order to start up the computer I had to turn the alarm clock off. It is early morning now – time to turn the clock back on.