A Letter Titled "Love and Respect" from August 6th, 2009

I believe in big and beautiful things. I'm sort of sad that you didn't note my "murcielagos en el campanario" phrase. Maybe it doesn't mean what I think it means. You taught me the word "murcielagos" and it's one of my favorites. I've even heard it, though I can't remember if it was a movie, tv, or on the subway or where -- I got excited when I heard the word used in conversation. I mean to say, "bats in the bell of the church" as in "bats in my head". Borges, eh? Three brujas on the subway in New York City were grouped around me. I am telling you the truth, what happened in my life, in reality as G- E-. The one witch had a letter in her very stylish bag with a postage stamp from España. I started flicking my teeth in a silent lisp, like some sort of serpent spell had been cast upon me. She noticed and we had a brief salutatory conversation in my peculiar brand of Castellano which is, in truth, just Joshuese with a bifurcated tongue. The bruixa behind her asked me if I were a writer. I'm not joking, and I'm not making this up. I said nothing and the reason she probably asked is because I had a very beautiful notebook in my hand, and surely somewhere a nice pen attached to my jacket, shirt, or cravat, my own accessory and weapon. The reason I was on that train is because I was in Brooklyn to face the Court in regards to an old warrant for my arrest. The judge heard me issue two or three sentences to my public defender and then he interrupted and said, "The warrant is vacated, I'm considering it satisfied." I told the bruixa that no one paid me to write. She looked at me and said, "They will. Don't worry, they will." It was so freaking strange. The third in the multidão de bruxas insisted that I read a book called "The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis" and I didn't understand what she was telling me, the language didn't make sense until I got home to look it up. I haven't read it. I hope that they do pay me to write someday.

What I haven't told you yet with all these words is that your suggestion that I teach ESL or just English to my Haitian brethren resonates with a desire I'm harboring. I told my grandfather and my mother that I wanted to go to Afghanistan to teach English and they said it wasn't a good idea. It isn't. To teach English, however, could be a perfect and humble role for me to play in this strange tragicomic drama of life. I have always been fascinated with the tower of Babylon and language and communication. Hermes / Mercury with his Caduceus and whispers of divine knowledge make my eyes sparkle with life. The lingua franca isn't French anymore, and Afghanistan will have to wait. I'm pretty sure -I- could survive there (Afghanistan(because I'm insane?)), but I am getting long in the tooth to keep testing God with my antics. 

I'm actually capitulating so much of my rebellious spirit and am doing the GED. So far I have passed the Math, Writing, Social sections; now I have to pass the Reading and the Science sections. Then, I will be a man. I feel like Rudyard Kipling's Mowgli in the United States, and I have a US passport. Your email, however ethereal and sadly unlikely to last much longer than as it is read in the electronic eye, speaks to what is happening to me. It feels like Jung's synchronicity. The insane can see patterns where there are none, so I am cautious with my own words now but please believe that it seems like your voice, your writing are all resonant with something greater. 

My old signature was an O. Wilde quote:

"God knows; I won’t be an Oxford don anyhow. I’ll be a poet, a writer, a dramatist. Somehow or other I’ll be famous, and if not famous, I’ll be notorious. Or perhaps I’ll lead the life of pleasure for a time and then—who knows?—rest and do nothing. What does Plato say is the highest end that man can attain here below? To sit down and contemplate the good. Perhaps that will be the end of me too." - O. Wilde

My old motto was borrowed from a lover:

"Live fast, die young, and leave a beautiful corpse."

I couldn't read "The Republic" so I listened to it on mp3 in bed. I'm not young. In fact, I'm 31. My corpse isn't as pretty as I'd like for it to have been, so I figure I'll just try for my full threescore and ten. Thank you for thinking of me. Let Merle know that I hold her in a pantheon of characters in my heart, a special set of eyes and words. Just smile at Petra. I don't think I could ask anything more of you. Let me know if there is anything that you liked on utsuprainfra.blogspot.com. I think I wrote the witches story somewhere. It really happened, even if it wasn't really much that actually happened, it meant something to me, as did your email today.

Signatures come and go and apparently I live through mottos. Son cosas de la vida.