“Statute 192, section B of the Wild Imaginations Act”

Hi S.

My apologies for not being in touch---got back on the wagon: found myself banging  way too much ink. I know. Strange for me to say such a thing but it came to a point, that certain day-after shudder, at which I was becoming TOO frank and too Virginia Woolf on speed sans the good writing and whatnot.

In terms of you, though---One of ‘those things’ (such a cop-out phrase)---. I think to write/forget to write/think/forget, ad infinitum. Pretty much that is my brainrightnow (remember that 80’s commercial? The one starring the baffled dad? Think accidental-fro and creepy mustache. Remember now? He asks his scrawny pimple-y kid (straightup-bad-acting-concerned-voice), “Who ‘taughtcha howda do this stuff?!” Kid blurts his retort, (bad-acting-passion/scorn-voice), “From you dad! I learned it by watching you!” Makes me want to look it up on you tube. I think that was the justsaynoto____it was meant to be drugs, that last word. Instead all we kids heard was: YOU! Yeah, YOU: go ‘head! do-drugs-and-blame-your-dad-later. This of course preceeded by two decades the penultimate See dad, look what I’ve become?! “Now tell me you love me even though you’ve never said it not once in ALL my 18 years p.s. I haven’t seen you in 17 of them.” Then a slouchy slurmumble:  "Yessss fuckit whateva’ I’ll go to Excavate All Daddy/Mommy Issues Ranch in Fucking Maliboo-hoo-hoo…when’s the plane leave? Can I shoot up one more time? Where’s the fucking bathroom you traitor-dickheads?" But you must NEVER agree to go until a) You’ve hurled your venti Starbucks  at your mom. (b You’ve fled the room while screeching “Fuck ALLYOUMOTHERFUCKERS!” This while being chased down 8 flights of stairs by your sweating cousin and limping grandma. (I am of course talking about “Intervention”). 

ANYfuckingway. Back to –did I ever get to?-Simon and Garfunkel’s haunting lullaby. Presently it looplooploops—say that out loud. Did you giggle?—It soundtracks all of my parts. “ The  Sound of Silence”…  You know it, I’m sure.

“Hello darkness, my old friend,

I've come to talk with you again,
Because a vision softly creeping,
Left its seeds while I was sleeping,
And the vision that was planted in my brain
Still remains
Within the sound of silence..."

One might assume depression  (understandably but arguably) is synonymous with darkness & must then be the entity addressed. I do not interpolate so. I say Darkness is not the necessary inversion of light. But it is not liminal either. In other words, just like any word, it is just a word. Maybe this is an odd thing for a writer to "declare," but my visceral/sentient experience (umbilical-ed as it is to my empirical experience) has taught me different.  Darkness, for me, in the immediate, is, well, OK. It is a place to rest and lay down my fear, all that restless grief. Darkness is the sound of silence, and I think also the sound of god. and ‘god’ is the improbability of one moment leaning into a next moment. If I am leaning into solemn canyons (time) and crossing weird bridges (experience)—shouldn’t I be thankful for what has been given rather than what has been taken?

Anyhow, that is where I am. 3 months of many many days feeling my body both prison and prisoner. But much grace is culled from both silence and pain. Body in fact not the hangman OR the condemned. Rather the body is my old friend; I've come to talk with it again. Of course I ain't feeling like Buddha everygoddamnday. You know me better than that, dog. Don’t worry: I’m not gonna start handing out pamphlets. Some days(ze)…sometimes all that zenny stuff is fallible. smoke and mirrors. your basic mindfuck. But it isn't today at least as I write this. Funny thing too. I’m listening to Sharron Van Etten. You might’ve thought S&G but naw. . ---pain, moment, grace, all that stuff---it leaves me feeling like a stripped down, funny-looking miracle. quick delight like finding a lucky penny and then making up a story about the pocket it fell out of. dream up the sage “antique playa” (most excellent euphemism:  translates to 'old man.' Picked it up from Holder, a character on my show “The Killing” …A Norman Rockwell meets The Notebook. The old man, he owned a penny candy store and loved his wife. Only a few days ago he planted his lucky penny for someone to find. It was his way: all his life, those kids passing through, picking out Mary Janes and wax lips…he lived to make people smile. Surely he died within a week of his bride. Her name was Sarah Beth. They’d been married for 50 plus years; he couldn’t live without her, literally. Takotsubo cardiomyopathy: Broken heart syndrome is real. did you know that? Frank Moore was his name. Frank placed the first penny he made on the pavement for someone to find. His way of saying “This is your day. Pick it up, kid."

And to answer your yes or no question. Have I EVER just answered a question, yes no or otherwise? Everything just gets me thinking! Here’s the Condition my Condition is in: I am-sorry!-SO tired of talking about it. Oh and re your kind visits--- I do not mean to hijack your Tuesdays or yer 1 o'clocks. I’m here. Just tell me what you can/can’t do. I will be---excepting buses or rabid dogs--in touch.

Much love to you and G and RT ex oh ex oh smiley face heart icon. love you to teeny tiny shredded chopped up pieces. ---ACF