Tonight I came across a box of old papers and letters.  Much of the box consists of old stories that would make excellent examples in the O.E.D. for the word feeble.  But I hang onto them.  I’m sure I have my reasons, but for the life of me can’t think of a single one.

But buried amongst the old stories were also some old letters, and it’s these that I found myself looking through.  Old letters nearly always tell the better story.  An old letter is a connection, because you know as you slide it from its smudged and worn envelope that it has been held and touched and cared for by both writer and reader.  Holding it in your hand is like looking into a mirror that reflects back both past and present, all at once.  In my letter, I am comforted by the image of a much younger me, sitting at a desk, writing about his struggle with an ending relationship.  But the comfort is short-lived when I wonder if the younger me may in fact be writing the letter not only to a friend, but to himself - to the older, present-day me.  Can the words of nearly twenty years ago still hold meaning for my life?  Have I grown so little it takes only one short letter per lifetime to sum me up?

The letter, dated September 4, 1986, was written for a friend.  Friends, it seems, are often put into impossible places when our own relationships fail.  The letter has some references to past letters that I will not even attempt to explain.

While many believe in the existence of ghosts, many more believe in the penning of an epistle to a distant friend.  A few, on the other hand, believe in both the ghost and the epistle.  And with a very few, it is the epistle itself that becomes the ghost.

This letter, when it is complete, will join all of my letters from the past, haunting the chambers of my mind with the thoughts and words that seem to live forever within me.  The thoughts and words which appear so harmless and meaningless when they first touch the paper.  Even now, the words of six months past begin their restless wandering, ”and we are reminded that reality strikes at the heart of even the most foolish upon occasion.”

Oh, the reality of being yourself the most foolish.  It is this reality that is now the bludgeon that flails my heart.  I spoke of wonderful times tugging at my heart, as well as a man, Don Quixote, capable of living these wonderful times.  Now I find myself caught between worlds, and I yearn for the days of yore.  But I no longer find the courage to become a Don Quixote, and the swift and mighty sword lies silent before me.  Do I place my hands upon it, using it to severe all that is around me, or in another manner - to fix this weak and wandering heart?  Or has time moved on and tricked me?  Is the sword just another word, a ghost, that lies before me to tempt and taunt?

I remember the day that this same ”Don Quixote cursed the day that he could not help a friend.”

I anxiously await your reply,

Keith

Whatever my friend’s reply was, I don’t know.  That letter doesn’t seem to have made it into the box.  I do know that in October of 1992, I found myself writing him yet again.  Life was not through bumping me around, it appeared.  In that letter, it is the last paragraph that is the best.

I’m basically the same man.  Keith - the man of promises unkept, words unwritten, lives unlived.  Pisces through and through.  Breath and dreams.  The moon seems to guide my heart.  I listen and try to follow, but the path is slippery, the stars moving beneath my feet at every step.

Why share this?  I’m not sure.  Maybe because the path has always been slippery.  Maybe because it is very nearly time to write my friend another letter.

There once was a real, live hermit in the family.  I never met him.  He was my grandpa’s brother, and lived in a small, one-room cabin somewhere in the middle of a Minnesota woods.  He died, I think, before I was born.  I was led to the cabin once, but could only see it from across a partially frozen pond.  It called to me like an empty place in need of company.

If I ever get a graphics tablet and pen, I will return to that cabin for the remainder of my days - provided hermits are allowed electricity.  And internet access.  And hot water.  And their children.

Everything is easier these days - even being a hermit.  I even believe long, dirty beards are no longer a requirement.

The first hour of Imaginary Keith’s day is spent listening to The Other crying.  Her life has no direction.  She is lost.  What’s she to do.  One day she is fine, the next a mess.  Her words, not his.  Crying and crying and crying.

One voice thinks: how sad.
One voice thinks: tomorrow she won’t even remember.
One voice thinks: no kidding.
One voice thinks: take a number, get in line.
One voice thinks: how will this effect my upcoming trip.
One voice thinks: she will never get a job.
One voice thinks: why does she do this.
One voice thinks: Fridays are always the worst.
One voice thinks: I need to get out of here.
One voice thinks: Run.
One voice thinks: Be concerned.
One voice thinks: No, look concerned.
One voice thinks: nothing.
And then another voice agrees.

And even though Imaginary Keith and I both watch from a safe distance, we know it will ruin our day.  We will get into the car and drive away.  Imaginary Keith will fall into a stupor, and I will return no phone calls.  He will write not one word and I will make not one dollar.

And one voice will quietly think: two years . . . this has been your day for two years.

I was thinking the other night about all of the things that slip through my life that are real but seem so unreal.  Things that I’ve seen with my own eyes, yet even at the moment of seeing them, begin immediately to surround themselves with doubts and questions.  Things that slip by so quickly, that even knowing they were real, I am left wondering because of the briefness I was exposed.

One time long ago, when Imaginary Keith was just a boy, he found himself sledding with his brother and a friend on a snowy hillside in Iowa.  A sunny, bright day.  A day after a storm, where the only thing showing against the blue sky is the intermittent cloud of your own breath and a handful of large, fluffy white clouds tumbling slowly along in the storm’s wake.

And on that day, now so long ago, Imaginary Keith had felt the need to look up into that sky.  Something pulled at his attention, and he remembers, even to this day, the pressure and bulk of his coat and many layers of clothing as he leaned back his head so that his eyes could reach whatever it was that called for his attention.  He remembers breathing slowly, so that the mist from his breathing wouldn’t be in the way.  He remembers a thick, gray, wool mitten coming up to shield his eyes from the sun as his eyes made the adjustment, going from the blinding snow white of the hillside to the deep, warm blue of the sky.

And on that long ago day, standing there on the top of that small hill, Imaginary Keith’s eyes found themselves resting on what appeared to be the front end of a large airliner, poking out from the clouds.  A large rounded shape, silvery white, sticking out slightly from behind a group of the large, puffy white clouds that hung low in the sky just over their heads.  Imaginary Keith sat and stared at the object, thinking that it looked like the nose of an airliner, but realizing at the same time that it didn’t move.

First in a low voice, and then louder and louder, Imaginary Keith called out to his brother and the friend, telling them to look up.  Something is up there, he said, knowing that they would look up and they would all see it.  Imaginary Keith took his eyes off of the object once, to see why his brother and the friend did not respond or say anything.  Only five or six feet away, surely they had heard him.  Surely they would want to look up and see whatever it was he was yelling about.  But when Imaginary Keith looked over at his brother and the friend, they were just standing there, silently staring straight ahead.  Imaginary Keith, looking straight at the two, told them to look up.  He pointed and motioned with his head.  He repeated himself, but the two boys just stood there, staring blankly at him.  They didn’t talk, they didn’t move, and they didn’t look up.

Imaginary Keith looked back up and the object was still there, poking out from behind the cloud even a bit more then before.  He watched it sitting there, wondering what it could be, knowing all along what it was.  He stared at it for maybe thirty, forty seconds, and then the object, silently and smoothly, slid behind the cloud in one quick motion and was gone.

And just as quickly as the object was gone, Imaginary Keith’s brother and the friend came back to life.  Suddenly they were talking and laughing and moving around, getting ready to head back down the hill.

Why didn’t you look up, Imaginary Keith asked them.  Why didn’t you say anything, he asked.

And the two boys just looked at Imaginary Keith like he was crazy.  What are you talking about, they said, then jumped on their sleds and disappeared down the hill, leaving Imaginary Keith to stand there all alone, thinking about what had just happened. 

But while a boy standing all alone on a hill might know what he has seen, he really has no idea just how hard it will become to separate real from unreal later in life.  He has no way of knowing that this is just the first of many things that will appear before his eyes and then disappear, leaving him to stand there wondering.  He has no way of knowing if he is better off for having seen the object, and now believing it, or whether it would have been better to be one of the other boys, staring blankly into nothing.