Conversely, everything has it's own time and place.
This is what I believe. I'm not saying that these above statements are The Gospel to be taken in and under as such by one and all. No, I am not. These statements have, over the course of time, become the faith of my days and of the ones that are to follow. Occasionally, this faith will run up and against those of differing faiths and it is always, at the very least, a discord of unease that will ensue. Those such opponents may be friends living in studios or strangers hiding in iPods on trains or ex's at the beer taps or leaders written in print or lovers who disclose via street-art or hopelessly inefficient servers at a bagel shop (just because your lifelong dream of finding happiness in the warm satisfaction of a growing career with The Sanitation Department has failed, there's no need to stunt the flow of my morning by taking umbrage with the fact that people in a bagel shop just want their fucking bagels quickly and efficiently. The bagel shop IS the time and the place for bagels....).
In certain circumstances, I am not at ease with this unease - however it chooses to manifest. Mostly, I couldn't give two shits about the wider public's consciousness and expressions, but there are certain people, who, for varied reasons, have a place in my heart and their 'upset' makes this here boy 'upset'. It is a difficult quandary to be in - caring generally is - for, though I can become even desperate at times to placate and restabilise a loved one's 'upset', I simply cannot concede any ground whatsoever in the faith I began this piece with.
There is a time and a place for everything.
So, if either I, you or the confluence of nature, time or the fat content of three lumps of veal bone marrow, dictate clearly to me a consequential time and/or place for something that you may not find to fit in with your personal liking/comfortability/desires/boredom/financial position/exhaustion/mysteries, I will not concede. And I am sorry if this 'upsets' you. I really am. (I am the most sorry I could be, for there is nothing I can do to change and repatriate reality with your desires, for I am an unmovable object on this. So, the most action I can take is to simply put all my energies into an apology, thereby making that apology my most focused one possible.) But nothing will change.
Well that's not true, perhaps my commitment to the aphorism and its application as resolute fact may change, but only when and where it is ready. Only in it's right time and place.
Impassioned intro there. What does it mean? Is it a prelude or an epilogue? Am I trying to send a specific message out to one or several people? Is it truly my position or am I just fleshing out the ridiculousness, in an effort to make it seem ridiculous, of another person's position? Do you agree? Am I right? And, the most important question of all - Why did I use forward-slashes in the penultimate paragraph?
These are all great questions and I could, should and (as the way these things tend to play out back in The Real Life) probably will end up answering all of them. However, in an effort to preempt such a line of questioning, I'm just gonna straight out tell you the meaning of the intro:
I've started reading a collection of Hunter S Thompson letters again. I don't think I've read this particular collection before, but at various times over the past ten years, I've leafed through various others. He had a wide-eyed optimism, mixed with a searing grumpiness and a juvenile subversiveness that runs through all of his, at times, hilariously written communication with a wide array of addressees. I'm certain, that my perversion with letter writing, is fueled in great part by my desires to emulate that man in many ways.
Now, I haven't read any of his letters in ages - I reckon its been a couple of years at the very least. Why is that? If I really enjoy them very much, then why preclude myself from such joy?
The answer is simple:
There's a time and a place for everything and I have either not had or not been in neither nor either position to dither amongst his letters (try saying that sentence five times fast....). The same reason is why I too have not written that many letters recently myself.
Well, somewhat not coincidentally at all, the same time and place I now find myself in that is conditionally favorable to reading letters, is also favourable to writing them. So....... time for a letter.
Dear Friend from The South,
It has been quite a while, since I last wrote to you. Much has changed. Yet, as it does - as the addresses I sleep at and the origin of the beer I drink and the cut of my silk and the amount of her time she gives to me and the thickness of my attire, wallet and mental sluggishness and drug intake and the quality of the service laundry all change - so much, stays the same. Hence, why I have felt so close to you, despite you not knowing where I am or whom I am with, for you knew me so well before and, trust me, you still do.
The truth is, that perhaps on some level, I have not checked in with you for too long for I am afraid of reproach. I know of your love for me and how you only want for my happiness (as it, apparently, makes you happy), but I still feel somewhat disappointed in myself, that I have may have disappointed you. Last time we wrote, we spoke of Heads and Skins and of whom and who to let in and when and where. I spoke as if in control and you spoke as if drunk and barely able to spell, let alone refill your feather shaped quill with that tar coloured blotter ink, you keep stored in old, discarded, hair-product containers that you find scattered out the back of the barber-shop you live above. Despite the sudden and frequent bursts of vacant space, as result of words unscratched out in ink, on that parchment you overnight-couriered to me, that would have left most of your dribble, with its incomplete sentences, paragraphs and quotes, completely undecipherable to any sane and adjusted soul, I immediately and without the need for revision understood what great pearls you were handing over to me.
And I took those words (and the ones that were meant to be there, but were missing) to heart. I did. Truly. And I attempted to follow your direction, but I am now back at an impasse - a fork. Again. And I don't want you to feel like I ignored you and let you down. So, I haven't written in a while. I've started to - I've sat down with intention to update you through the power of lyrical verse or chattering vocabularic flow - but nothing came out. I did not even really know who or where to address it to. But, with The Time and The Place now being right, I have much to tell you.
Many years ago, we spoke of how The Road was not for you. You had a career (at that time you were a web-site designer, specialising in building pages for isolated, rural, service stations. Remember?), a social life, a certain living arrangement, a regularly visited cafe and a pair of jeans at the dry cleaners that you simply couldn't bring yourself to leave behind. These passions - constructs of your powerful heartstrings - were of course simply imagined anchors to your hometown. The truth was, as I saw it then and still do now, that you couldn't bring yourself to head out here with me, for you could not leave in waste the great master-plan you had for winning the love, hand, smile and consistency of that Estonian Girl. The one, whom at that time, you still did not even know neither her pain or her name.
I remember demanding in a voice of rising frustration, that you explain to me why you were so much more committed to a girl you knew only as the one working at the cupcake store (and a franchised/chain one at that!), than to another human you knew perfectly completely - yourself. You answered me some nonsense about your love for her choosing you and not the other way around and that circumstances had provided so many signs to the very star-crossed nature of your perceived, future, life-long, commitment and relationship with her. When I retorted how ridiculous that was, for you are a diabetic and dangerously unable to even kiss her, for fear of imbibing too much of the sugars that, due to the nature of her work, surely secreted upon her lips and that this itself was in fact a sign against that very notion of you guys 'working out' on any level, you replied that cupcakes were just a means to an ends so that she may support her real passion - becoming an Equine Veterinarian. I was initially shocked that you had access to this very personal information about her, but when, a week later, you revealed that you had infact made up this little morsel about her, I became enraged and we did not speak for six and a half weeks - the second longest time we have gone without speaking..... until now that is...
I was thinking about this story just the other day. I have my reasons for lingering upon such memories - I too have fallen in love, but am uncertain as to whether I truly know her pain or not - but this is not what drove me to write to you today, nor is it because you demand update on status quo.
I write to you, for I want to tell you something:
There's nothing that The Road cannot heal!
Out here, my friend, out here where the traffic lights are always amber, the over-taking lanes always clear and roadhouse bathrooms always clean, out here lies forgiveness. And not just from those who also walk this way, but from the very physicality of the sparseness that allows, nay - forces, you to forgive yourself. The emptiness leaves room for everything but regret and grudge. I do wrong everyday out here, but arise ready to forgive me and you. Wont you join me? We can sing all day, argue before dinner, fight bitterly after dessert and hug it out in the morning. Refreshment comes in that laying down of the burden and The Road is Home, if your Home has become a Burden.
So, My Great Friend from The South, you coming? I'll send a car to pick you up at the airport. The driver's name will be Walter. He is quite old and nearly blind, but he loves to drive fast and can parallel park better than anyone you'll ever meet.
Your Brother,
Hershatlarge
