timing

(part 1)

a letter arrived this morning

i woke this morning to find an email from a friend of mine, someone i haven't seen in years, and one of the only people (outside of my family) who has known me with some regularity and intimacy over the past two decades.

in my experiences few friendships evidence this type of stamina, and ours runs from meeting one another in a miserable, unintentionally atonal middle school marching band in 1989, through the unexpected punk rock reunions and antics of 1996, all the way to our last conversation, which probably transpired sometime in 2003.

ours was not the twelve tone of Schoenberg

but this is beside the point.

the point is that i only just realized that each of those memories is separated by 7 years which, as any good anthroposophist knows, is the length of human change. Rudolf Steiner wasn't alone in these ideas, and i have often heard my own teacher discuss how human beings enter a new stage of life every seven years, corresponding to the next phase of their spiritual development.

Rudolf Steiner, looking a bit like...

Skeletor

this, too, is beside the point.

the point is that my friend's letter was one of the most amazing pieces of writing i've read in a long while, simultaneously heartfelt, courageous, and comedic. it contained great phrases like "murderize", witty observations about Portland, and an unconventional melding of form and content that would cause Donald Barhtelme to blush from envy.

Barhtelme, looking writerly

(part 2)

some questions arose this morning

how do we account for the exits and entrances from our lives?

Mardou, somewhere in California

not the introductions we make, or the circumstances we escape, but the inexplicable ebb and flow of the people we hold dear?

Jache, somewhere in my living room

why are the people closest to us sometimes the ones furthest in geographic or temporal proximity?

my sister, somewhere in Baltimore

why do we sometimes find ourselves sharing our most precious moments with the most distant of strangers?

my shadow and mirror, location unknown

(part 3)

epilogue

i read my friend's email to my yin, who laughed aloud, and i eventually cut short my morning hatha practice so i could set about drafting a reply. my goal was to respond with the same beauty and honesty that my friend had shown to me.

it has since been sent, and i'm excited to see what happens next...