Dear Charlie,
I am so glad you have found it, that thing that exists even when it is imperceptible to everyone. Yet, somehow, you found it.
There is no way to tell our bones to bend. That’s not something bones do. That’s not why bones grow so strong with conviction. Perhaps that’s just the way they were programmed. Poor things have no clue how to grow any other way.
Above my dinning table, a painting lies. The boy should be looking up, my friend told me. The boy in the frame. She painted it, so she should know. But the boy trapped inside it looks like he’s resting this way; laying on his bed with his head gently resting in the emptiness of the edge. Like I’ve done so many times. Otherwise, he’s sitting on a chair, looking up in an awkward way.
What a nightmare! To spend eternity sitting on a chair! In a frame, or on a train, always sitting. Watching and waiting for something to happen, to change the landscape. A chair can be very helpful. A chair for waiting out the blizzard. A chair to be taller. A chair to listen to other chairs in a circle. A chaise longue to express your fears in a safe space. I prefer a bed.
(An October bed is a trap. Coming home is terribly dangerous when it is dark with October hours. A terribly glauque homecoming, to keep the company of someone who never remembers you. Yet, somehow, finds you, over and over again. Perhaps by mistake. Perhaps not. A running gag, as they say. An opportunity to match two cards? The grasshopper and the ant. Am I the rich one? Who’s rich enough to know the difference? Who’s the poor ol’ boy who can’t mute everyone’s thoughts? And how kind is he in the face of all that information? Is it a crime to think these thoughts? Is it a crime to want to ignore them? Snooze. Snap!)
These temporary things that stretch over us like constellations of roots keep us up at night. Sitting up right and waiting for that moment... a bored volcano, indeed. Be a mountain! It’s all downhill from here, eh Charlie?
Hold on.
Labels: conversations, Dear Charlie, design, DNA, experiment, humans, musical, please feel secure, social