Dear T —

I’ve fallen in love.

This time with Groucho Marx.

(I’ll take Groucho over Karl any day.)

In English we say —Time heals all wounds. Groucho says —Time wounds all heels.

(truth)

I have so much to tell you I hardly know where to start.

(I always say that; it’s always true.)

I must have six or seven letters worth now, so I won’t tell you everything all at once — how’s that?

I watched “Marty” (1955) — such an adorable movie. The main character reminded me too, too much of myself.

In one scene, he just can’t stop talking (and says so) but he keeps on talking — like he’s never told anyone anything before.

That made me happy. I guess I’m not the only one.

I recently moved all my belongings into a storage locker — all but a suitcase of clothes, a few books, and some cooking utensils.

(I plan to move soon.)

It feels good.

I have profound minimalist tendencies.

Without the clutter, my head feels clearer and I feel lighter too, like I’m on vacation.

(I always loved that banker’s apartment in “9 ½ Weeks” — also a Harvard guy I think lol — maybe too typically a bachelor pad though.)

I may never stop living this way.

While going through some of my boxes, I found two short story collections I had written and completely forgotten about(?!).

Actually one was a collection of children’s stories.

I stood there and read them and it felt as if someone else had written them, probably someone had — a different me, a prior me.

I had no idea what to do with them. Back in the box…

(Reminder to share an update on my writing projects.)

I have been sorting clothes lately, putting winter clothes away and pulling out summer ones.

I have tons of clear boxes and I fold everything Marie Kondo-style and sort by type, size, and color.

I’m very organized and fastidious — I’m sure I’m borderline OCD — especially when it comes to things that I care about.

I have the boxes lined up like books on library shelves — I should create my own Dewey decimal system.

With all the colors and shapes visible through the clear plastic, they look like a Jackson Pollock, beautiful.

For a while, I dressed all in black, then military chic, then like a box of crayons — think David Hockney.

(I was in love with the whole white/pink/orange/camo look too.) 

Lately I’ve been dressing like a carton of Easter eggs, patrician pastels, preppy.

Next I may go full Thom Browne — medium grey suits, blush pink shirt, rose gold watch: me to a tee.

Just need a gin and tonic to finish…

(With my first paycheck from my first job ever, of course, I bought a shirt — I still remember how it smelled, like butter…)

I used to have one of those wooden, standing valets to set your clothes out on for the next day. Maybe I’ll buy another one.

I broke my glasses the other day — I’d had that pair for 4 years or more — but I had the same lenses put into an identical frame: also me to a tee.

Speaking of clothes:

I have decided to copy the couture collections and write a Fall/Winter project and a Spring/Summer project every year.

Maybe I’ll write one drama and one comedy.

I plan to have my current project ready by November but I’ll start the next one in October anyway.

I have been doing a ton of research for my current project, including some traveling — still much more to do.

I’m super excited about it — it’s very me. I’ll tell you more about it later, if you want to know.

I decided to shelve my Penpals project for a while. I made big progress, then I hit a wall.

(Right now it looks like Maria Callas when she was fat — I need to put it on a diet so it will sing better.)

I still have confidence in it though. I think after I have had a break from it, I will have a breakthrough.

I actually can’t wait to get back into it. This project scares me the most because I have hope for it.

My list of children’s stories keeps growing too. I have seven now in total. One is done. Two is half done.

(This does not include the ones I “found” either.)

Did I tell you each story deals with a mental heath issue? It feels very purposeful to write these.

I (half) joined a children’s book writers club — half because I joined but haven’t gone yet lol. I will, I will…

(—I don’t want to belong to any club that will accept people like me as a member. Groucho again.)

Assemble all these projects and you have my heart.

Well, almost all of it.

+

I read what you wrote the other day, about your father.

I couldn’t sleep that night. Tears rolled into my ears.

The next day I tried to hold them back, until I couldn’t anymore.

The pressure made my head throb.

If I can share some observations on my own experiences, maybe they will sound familiar to you.

…because of what happened:

—you feel, intrinsically, unworthy of love, you feel you don’t deserve it (or)

—you think you did something wrong, you think you deserved what they did to you (or both)

—you refuse love when it is given to you, you don’t believe it can be true

—you fear every attachment will go horribly wrong, if not now, soon enough

—intimacy equals fear

—you think love equals pain, it’s all you’ve known it to be

—you miss the only kind of “love” you’ve ever known, which wasn’t love at all, it was the opposite

—you distrust any love that doesn’t feel like that

—you see or hear something (for me, even today, it’s the jingle of keys) and you feel fear

—you push those who want to love you away even though you don’t want to

—you try to protect them from yourself because (you think) you are absolutely no good

—you hurt them to make them leave — viciously if you have to, if you think that’s the only way — and when they leave, they’ve proven your point

—you feel safe now, but disconnected and alone

—you multiply the hurt: you’ve been hurt, you’ve hurt yourself, and now you’ve hurt those who love you

—hurting more you hurt others more, as they say —hurt people hurt people

—you repeat this again and again

(until you face it)

I have done, felt all of this.

You can break this cycle.

(I did. Others have.)

It will take time. It will take help. It will hurt more — at first.

(I think of that man, his arm pinned under a boulder: lose your arm or lose your life.)

Get the help you need.

Nothing else matters.

Only trust can cure this.

Only love can heal this.

You are entitled to love.

(to receive love, to give love)

You are entitled to happiness.

You are entitled to peace.

(No one deserves suffering — not someone ordinary, let alone someone so extraordinary.)

We need your voice.

Your voice matters.

You matter.

You.

Matter.

(You have no idea how much you matter…)

The universe loves you, its own and beloved.

Let the light inside you reach other light.

You’ve already done the hardest thing. You’ve named it. You’ve said it out loud.

I am so, so proud of you for that I can’t even begin…

(I am here for you.

I will always be here for you.)

Every child comes innocent and perfect.

(every one)

I had to say this…

As a father of two healthy, happy, grown, independent children, a daughter and a son, nothing matters more to me.

You would rather hurt for them. You ache for them and with them because love connects you.

I didn’t know how to love before them. I know love now because of them.

(They never call, write, or text me — that means I did well!)

I was proud and ashamed to have only one principle as a parent: never, ever be like my dad.

(I never was.

It’s what I’m most proud of.

He taught me how to be a father by negative example.)

I loved it so much I’d do it again in an instant — dogs and all — only if she wanted it too, of course.

(I had mine really young. I was still a kid myself.)

Families don’t stifle dreams. They strengthen them. They strengthen you.

You won’t believe how strong you can be.

(Names matter, so I gave my daughter a palindrome: no matter which direction she goes in life she’ll always know who she is.)

Thanks to them, I’ve learned the important things in life from their teachers.

One taught me that kids act out to ask for love:

—Hold them, she said, so they know the pain inside can be contained, controlled, transformed…

I have always tried to do that — literally, metaphorically — absorb others’ pain.

Not to release it, but to reverse it. So they can do the same one day.

(I think of it as sucking out the venom.)

Hugging can heal, just like sex between a man and a woman can heal.

(Sex can be whatever you want, whatever you need, whatever you love…

…a bed is a blank page.)

You can give real love with your body.

You can touch their soul through their body.

They are one and the same.

I spent time with some friends recently and their seven year-old daughter.

They love this child so much.

You can see plainly how both parents have locked on to her frequency.

Children loved like this always seem so full.

They don’t have any empty space inside them; they completely fill themselves up with themselves.

(Maybe that’s why they are so heavy!)

The whole time I wanted to give this kid a great big hug, but I didn’t — it would have been for me, not for her.

I have more to say but I will save it for other letters. I promised, not all at once…

+

I haven’t eaten out much lately but the other night I had a meal that made me quite emotional.

The simplest things moved me the most:

—the butter, suspended, dusted with salt like diamonds

—the bread, steaming, swaddled like a baby in its basket

—a wine I’d never had before, from a grape I’d never heard of before, from a winery carved into a mountainside

You could have mistaken the small plates of duck and lamb for a Kandinsky or Malevich.

Everything tasted like where it came from, as if it took you (ethereally) to where it grew.

Each flavor woke memories, sweet and bitter.

I held back the whole meal.

I thought of movies you watch again and again, even though they break you.

(For me, The Iron Giant — why do cartoons about robots always…?)

Unlike films, meals too quickly become irretrievable, only memories.

Neither leave you though. They join you, change you, become you — permanent feasts.

In years you can ask –Remember that…? and it all comes back to you as if it had just happened.

The same way real love always feels like it just happened.

Fresh and warm and sweet as a summer strawberry.

— With all my love (there’s so much) and then some, D

P.S. Who among us actually lives in reality? Groucho again:

—I’m not crazy about reality, but it’s still the only place to get a decent meal.