A Letter To Friend

Dear You,

Do you ever wonder why we fight so much?  The reason for the constant back and forth?  I have.  Because it isn't normal fighting.  It isn't the kind of fighting where everyone is left angry or hurt afterwards.  No.  I've never felt that way.  Never once.

It isn't arguing either.  Neither of us are trying to win anything.  We never actually try to make the other person look foolish.  We simply poke fun.  Flirt, some would say.  

Though, sometimes, I get nervous in the silence, or in the moment that you walk away, that it might actually be this time.  I might have actually crossed the line.  I might have said the thing that truly hurts.  And all the while, during that silence, I'm praying you know that I never meant it.  I would never say anything to hurt you.  Never.

I read somewhere that the person who knows how to annoy you the most, is also the person who loves you the most.  It probably has to do something with the fact that they have taken the time to observe you.  Taken the time to know what you like.  And taken the time to know what you don't like.  It's all very simple.  And it's all very true.  

Yes, I agree with that statement.

Because I've come to realize something.  There is a strange funny feeling in my stomach every time we fight.  A feeling like a smile.  Knowing that whatever comes out of your mouth and whatever comes out of mine mean the exact same thing.  Absolutely nothing.  And absolutely everything.  

How so?  You may ask.  Easy.  What we're trying to say is never what we're trying to say.  What's on the surface isn't actually what we want to surface.  It's The Iceberg Theory of our bickering.  7/8 of what we actually say is below the water. Praying the other person is wise enough to recognize it.  Because hidden in that large mass, is everything that has ever meant anything to either of us.  

And it is because of all this that I realize the most important thing about our fighting: 

I'm never fighting with you.  I'm fighting for you.  

I'm fighting for your attention.  I'm fighting for your smile.  I'm fighting for your laugh.  I'm fighting for everything that matters to me.  In you.  

And I love it.  More than anything I've ever experienced.  I love the look in your eyes when you know you're right.  I love the smile that slowly opens on your mouth when you know I'm right.  Most of the day I walk around hoping I'll bump into you.  Hoping we have some sort of exchange.  And if we do I'll ignore everyone around me.  Because they don't matter.  They don't equal what we have.  They never will.  Because I know that, at the end of the day, I'd rather fight with you than talk to anyone else.  

And relationships need this.  Otherwise they grow stagnant.  Kissing becomes old.  Movies become old.  Every moment together becomes old.  Man and woman need tension.  Not physical or psychological battery.  But they need to fight.  They need to fight for something.  And if they're good, it's always the same thing: They fight for eachother.  Or else passion goes by the wayside.  And without passion, there is not love.   

Most days, at the end of the day, I'll lay in my bed, still thinking about a fight we had earlier.  All the ways I could have made my point better.  All the ways I could have made you laugh more.  And this'll frustrate me.  I could have done this and I could have done that.  I coulda, woulda, shoulda.  But that's when I'll realize, every time, it doesn't matter.  It never did.  Because beneath the things I've said, the Yeah Right's, the Whatever's, is the thing I'm always trying to say: 

I love you more than you will ever know.  

  

Anything But Mine

To the only girl I've fallen for

and never gotten back up.

I guess what they say about love is true. It steers a course all of its own. Weaving, diving, soaring until one day it lands right in front you. Staring you in the eyes. And the only thing you can do is pray to God that in that moment you are able to capture it. Take it by the hand. And if not, you'll live every day like me. Hoping you get just one more chance.

The Island School of Literature

Mark Twain once wrote:

Indeed the Island Wilderness is the very home of romance and dreams and mystery.  The loneliness, the solemnity, the beauty, and the deep repose of this wilderness have a charm which is all their own for the bruised spirit of men who have fought and failed in the struggle for life in the great world; and for men who have been hunted out of the great world for crime; and for other men who love an easy and indolent existence; and for other who love a roving free life, and stir and change and adventure; and for yet others who love an easy and comfortable career of trading and money-getting, mixed with plenty of loose matrimony by purchase, divorce without trial or expense, and limitless spreeing thrown in to make life ideally perfect.  (Following the Equator, 1897)

Life ideally perfect. 

For most of my memorable life, or what I think of as something worth memory, I have always been drawn to the islands.  Any islands.  Martha's Vineyard, Nantucket, the British West Indies, the Virgin Islands, Barbados, Fiji, the Seychelles.  You name it, I want to be there.  Unless, of course, you decide to be funny and say Manhattan.  I've been there. I'll pass.

The islands are an escapist's dream.  They are like castles scattered amongst the ocean.  Little hideouts with perpetual moats full of man-eating sharks and razor-sharp reefs.  Hindrances against the hordes of life.  There, man can withstand any siege until it passes.  And sail onwards when it does.  

Or not.  And stay forever.  That's perfectly ok.

_________________________________________________________

Every author has a purpose when he begins writing.  It may be to highlight the foibles of human nature. To portray the dark side of man. To reveal the truths about society, the ones they won't tell you in school.  They can be serious in doing so or utterly slap stick.  Just depends on how they want you receive it.

Writers may also be a part of a movement, all the great ones were.  Twain was a Realist, Hemingway a Modernist, and Pound was an Imagist.  They all had specific goals for their literature, they were all focused on presenting certain themes.  Some humourous, some dark, and some complex. Quite frankly,  all the maniacal dictators could never equal the danger of a writer with a pen in their hand.  Because writers could destroy the most crucial element of human  existence:  Perception.

But that's not me.  That isn't my goal with writing.  I have never been one to look on the dark side of life.  And never one to try to make people believe in this, either.  Certainly, darkness can be a very interesting subject matter, and I'm quite fond of dark humor (Twain and Larry David), but I won't let it govern my life.  There's so much better out there.

Thus, I discovered my purpose in writing.  Not to depict the pain in life--violence, betrayal, chaos.  But to create an escape from it all.  A literary island.  A place where people can go and enjoy the good things in life.  This may be love.  This may be friends.  This may be a cold beer.   But all that concerns me is that, you, the reader,  for a few moments out of the day--a few moments away from the hardship, the strife, and the drama--find life ideally perfect.   

 So, I welcome you all--friends, family, and friends to be--to what I like to call,

The Island School of Literature

  

Enjoy.