Dear Abby: Letters to Ed

My epistolary essay "Dear Abbey: Letters to Ed" now out in the new Louisiana Literature, Vol. 33. No. 1. Thanks to them for taking a longer text. Print. Order here.

 

Letters to Wakoski

"Letters to Wakoski," my epistolary essay to Diane Wakoski, my mentor and former professor. Also about being a fire lookout, and life and stuff, appeared in SOUTH DAKOTA REVIEW. Print. Volume 56, no. 3. Fall 2022. And! Made it to the "Notable Essays" in the back of this year's Best American Essays 2023. That means it made it to the top 100 essays. Third essay of mine to do so!

i

Diane—

Bon jour from Tower Point Lookout in Central Oregon—

different from last year when grass cured by the time I came up

+ I had three fires already called in + $1,000 of overtime.

now, approaching July, still lupen + Indian paintbrush

air cool mostly tho finally getting warmer w/scattered rain.

one lightning strike west of West Maury Mountain two weeks

ago + this southwest wind may or may not be the start of what passes for

monsoons here. Mostly winds come from the northwest, the Cascades

forming a sort of wall—far south I've watched huge nimbus clouds

roll east w/lightning + storms at night over northern California.

west I have the Sisters + Mt. Jefferson, to the north the Ochocos,

west Snow Mountain on the Malheur National Forest, + south

Hampton Butte + Hwy 20 between Bend + Burns—Prineville

nearest town w/groceries w/a couple cafes to sip tea + even

a small movie theater tho only mostly schlock Hollywood stuff—

still, on a hot afternoon w/not enough time to go hike in the woods

when I only have one day off, I like to just sit in the cool dark

+ stare at the glowing screen. right now I'm still getting

two days off + eight-hour days—shower at the BLM Cache +

indulge in restaurant food then car-camp out in the pondos somewhere

+ day hike—I dont know anybody around here + just pass through

Prineville like a ghost, get my groceries for the week + come back

up here. a bald eagle built a nest just to the north off the butte—

I think w/a mate tho dont see her as much. Other raptors come

in when they're not around—when I catch mice + squirrels in traps

on the catwalk I leave the bodies out on a rocky point as offerings

ii

got invaded by critters last night. or a critter. squirrels

+ mice climb right up the walls apparently + slip in the cracks in

the attic. or something. spent the morning cleaning it out.

someone years ago left a sleeping bag up there, now a cotton nest

in every corner—one right on a pile of mice poison pellets.

I'll fill out a CA-2 mañana when I go into town on days off

for potential exposure to hantavirus. fun.

I switched from peanut butter to cheese in the traps,

squishing it down so they have to really work to get to it.

left a couple at the end after I sprayed the place w/bleach

+ five minutes later caught the invading critter: a mouse.

rock squirrels come up at night on the catwalk. I put traps

out there to catch the mice before they go further but maybe

that just attracted the squirrels. didnt have this problem

last year, tho the LO before me had packrats, which ate poison

+ died + rotted, which drew maggots, which spread down through

the ceiling. more fun. this is an 'historic' tower + neglected.

fixing requires red tape but the fire cache guy bought blinds—

all it takes is some engine guys seeing me using cardboard boxsides

to block the sun. they pity me. makes me wonder why blinds

have never been bought before, in all the decades, but in the last

decade the LO lived in a trailer below, also invaded

by critters. I feel if you live at the tower you need to live

in the tower—part of the job catching smokes in the off hours.

clouds building. more lightning. but coming w/rain

iii

big dark cell formed west of the Maurys + tracked northeast

into the Ochocos w/lightning—which has been the weather

the last month—lightning but w/rain so crews + engines chasing

single trees, holding off on calling them controlled for a few days

so as to keep earning hazard pay when they put their foot in the black.

that first day you came to class w/yr silver hair newly cut short

wearing a Silver Surfer t-shirt—I the only one to take both yr

Contemporary Poetry + Intro to Poetry Writing—people who

write poetry dont seem to want to read it + those who read it

just want to analyze it. you had us work in forms to develop

discipline. I was the only one in class to get that japanese form

right. that summer I actually made money from poetry: one guy

working the Greyhound station gave me half-price to Jackson

because he liked my stuff. meanwhile in your Contemporary

American Poetry class I was floundering enjoying everything

esp. when you played Anne Waldman reading 'Empty Space'

which changed my poetry life but couldnt understand how to write

about poetry—my natural response to want to write a poem back.

fortunately since it was a summer class you dropped

the big essay at the end. otherwise I would have failed.

as is, I got a 2.0 while being the only one in the writing class to get

a 4.0. the Maury Mountains named after a Colonel Maury—

no military training, just the richest white man in the territory

during the 'Indian Wars' so an indian killer. I have not

found out what the native name is but would love to rename

the tower. Tower Point being redundant. mañana down

for two days off. no high fire danger yet so no overtime.

I'll car-camp somewhere + do a day hike on Wednesday morning.

maybe tuesday see a movie in the afternoon. anyways, yr classes—

Fortuna shifted my Fata, music shifted to words.

iv

still cool, even in July w/clouds forming over the higher elevations.

the tower gets warm in late afternoon tho when the sun comes in

horizontal. I move my chair out on the catwalk put on a jacket

+ read in the wind. or play guitar. I've taught myself mandolin too—

I play Bach everyday sonata und partita which purifies my soul

tho I'd really like to play bluegrass w/other musicians. Sacrifice

of the lookout, not to be able to jam. a previous lookout

now plays cello for the London Philharmonic. he played other

instruments + engine guys would bring a case of beer + listen

+ talk into midnight, back when there was a guard station.

occasionally an engine drives up to collect my time

+ I go in on days off to fill my water + take a shower.

they all think I'm crazy or that I'm off because not as crazy as

previous lookouts but at least they think I'm good. one thing

you always encouraged was to end a poem on an image rather

than go for the cliché wisdom, which I encouraged in my writing

students which confused them because they'd been brainwashed

to always end with a thesis statement even in a story so

I probably ruined them for future classes but maybe not for life.

you warned me not to go into academia but I did anyways.

fortunately, o Fortuna, I escaped + made my way to this mountain.

I had some great students from whom I learned a lot but wonder

what would have happened if I'd started lookouting earlier instead.

either path would have lead here. Fortuna contra Fata. Anyway.

I still have lupen + indian paintbrush + aggregating flutterbies

+ nighthawks + wolves up on the Warm Springs Reservation.

v

another two-day weekend. luxury. actually, the horror: nothing

to do in Prinetucky. tweaked my knee too somehow so cant run

or go for a hike or hardly a walk—maybe just going down the

stairs wrong + too fast so had to stay in town. new movie house

over in Redmond, small w/drinks + meals. Hollywood mostly

but saw a documentary on the Laurel Canyon music scene of the 60s—

plus a bookstore down the street. bought Billy Budd for four bucks

just to support + finally read it—on reserve since I checked out

a lot of library books—have to stock up in case I get a dud or two.

two short story collections, Bolaño + Chekhov + Horizon

by Barry Lopez. also teaching myself Latin—at Aztec Lookout

Ed Abbey's old LO I just read all day—after that figured I'd

spend some time doing something not more productive but

different yet still language-related. good to be alone. I get lonely

around people though I miss poetry nights chez toi: good food

+ good poetry + good people + good wine + tea—magic nights for

three or four years. Tim the only one I can tell who still writes—

Heather now into knitting. you always said writing poetry helped

people figure out what really interests them—mathematics or music

or politics. you never approved of MFA programs but wrote LORs

for us. I loved having dinner w/you + David Trinidad in New York

+ taking you to the Blade Runner sequel two years ago. magic times.

I have an artificial owl to scare off squirrels trying to nest in my truck.

I've named her Athena.

vi

getting too warm in the tower in the afternoon. not unpleasant

to read out on the catwalk in a cool wind to keep flies off

+ so far yellowjackets aren't bad at all—I was proactive

+ set traps early to catch the queens. at chez toi gatherings

you showed how if a poem wasn't quite working that simply

moving a line or two—usually the strongest one to the beginning—

opened it up tho at the end of your tenure you chose to teach

intro classes because younger poets were more open to suggestion

and/or you wanted to give them the discipline before they studied

in programs where everyone receives a participation ribbon.

you cared particularly about trope—all imagery in a poem

relating to the main setting or idea, like catching a fish or exploring

a wreck any similes or comparisons would involve the sea or water.

you told students what wasn't working + helped them figure it out.

I suppose if someone offered me another teaching gig I'd take it.

I still occasionally send out a curriculum vitae but I think those

days are past unless I publish a best-selling book of poetry (ha)

or a Great American Novel (double ha). the flying ants are here.

down in the southwest that used to mean monsoons. up here

in central Oregon it's only sort of true—we do get July moisture

w/some lighting but not dowsing rain. two different winds:

Zephyrus comes in south of the Cascades tho mostly Boreas

down from Canada + the Columbia. some days clouds come

in from both directions + merge like influences.

vii

cool cloudy morning. yesterday lightning down in

the Glass Mountains—farthest south section of my territory

tho I can see further—called in a weather update to Dispatch

which was enough to extend me an hour—for once I worked longer

than the Forest Service towers to the north of me—no smoke tho

+ another cell formed + left rain on the area tho that cell

dropped lightning just to the south of Hampton Butte—a blind spot

but the cumulus so thick they're turning into a stratus layer.

fifteen/twenty years ago I had the idea of collecting

from all yr former students, Sapphos + Troubadors, things learned

from you + assemble them in some kind of Confucian text but

poets herd like cats + I never tried tho did write an essay

about you for the collection that Heather + Carrie were to do

which also never went anywhere. I wrote about your table—

gathering at it to eat + drink + read poetry + how I hoped

to be able to do that one day—still do—except I'm rarely

around poets, or not any that I know, though for about a year

when I was teaching in Jackson I did gather fellow teacher poets—

I couldn't host but Martha, who you met once after reading there,

did + good food + drink + poetry were had. we even met

on a night the whole city shut down for a blizzard. I walked home

right down fourth ave through snow drifts. never understood why/how

people get so traumatized when told that something in a poem

isn't working—with you, you were always right. I've learned—

at least a little, how to be critical. sometimes it takes time:

I just revised two long poems I considered done for five years.

viii

back to Tower Point Lookout from another 2-day weekend.

for end of July that's amazing—last summer I was on 10-hr days

w/just one day off. my knee better so did short hikes in Mill Creek

tho nothing epic + still had time to see two indie movies in Redmond:

American Woman + The Last Black Man in San Francisco—both

about merikan lower-class life, white + black respectively. if the poor

could just stop infighting the guillotines could come back out! kidding

tho I'd fall in love w/a woman who wore guillotine earrings. tower life

is voluntary poverty—excuse me, simplicity—but at least I'm free.

the key is not paying rent, to keep moving in the off season + visit

friends (what little I have)(left) + see the world + yes I'm a white male

+ national forests are kind of white spaces tho hispanic + natives

were not uncommon down at Cerro Pelado Lookout in New Mexico.

I still haven't learned the native name of these mountains—

at least this isn't Maury Lookout—that would gall. still windy + cloudy,

still some Indian paintbrush + lupen hanging on tho the grass curing

+ Prineville felt Phoenix-hot when the sun came out yesterday.

I could actually drive up tomorrow on the clock but if I'm going to camp out

might as well just come up to the best view around. remember when I wrote

from Chile? I didn't know what else to do after graduating so went

to Pablo Neruda's country to hear the birds + ocean. I needed to tell

myself maybe that I was keeping poetry in my life but also to say

thank you + ask permission—you who wouldn't think I was crazy.

or maybe you do. I wrote asking what I should do w/my life

+ you said when one gets lost there is usually a sign nearby. which

took me that long to realize you were saying keep going.

ix

called in my first fire of the season way down south past Hwy 20

actually on Lakeview District tho we weren't sure until helitack

got on scene. two Rivers South BLM engines got dispatched tho

stood down. at least I got them some overtime. I think I finally

broke double digits on my OTs. the fire an acre, probably

lightning, a big cell formed around there + tracked northeast.

so I feel useful finally, end of July. at least Forest Service LOs

to the north have to take days off now too. their supe works

wonders w/fire numbers to keep them on + extended. End of this

pay period we'll be in August! already! re-reading Jim Harrison's

Essential Poems. he passed away earlier this year, supposedly

at his desk writing. which is how I'd like to go. I think he'll be

remembered as a poet more than novelist tho Dalva will live and I

went thru his novellas in a phase about fifteen years ago. that

long? loving Letters to Yesenin especially, tho hadn't before—

and his general irreverence to people but reverence to land

+ animals. same as Ed Abbey. I just cannibalized some poems

to save a longer poem from my Aztec Lookout time—added large

sections in, as is. they weren't working on their own, just

needed to be part of a larger whole. these are the things that keep

me absorbed for hours. I'm not sure what normal people do. watch tv.

not sure what I would or will do after being a fire lookout.

living the dream + better than working in a cube staring at a screen.

most of the state lookouts got replaced by cameras which dont work

very well—effective range ten miles and some poor kid has to

sit in an office all day and stare at six to nine screens (!)—

technophiles + the progress of man. o fortuna.

x

smoke haze today from a big fire down along I-5 milepost 97

another in the mountains above La Pine. end of July + fire

season has finally sort of come, tho here I'm still finding lupen

in the shady north faces. worked one of my days off last

week but not tomorrow. no lightning. would be warmer except

for gusty afternoon breezes. open my window + door

+ sit outside on the catwalk reading + playing guitar. Singing.

birds around here cant quite figure me out. they'll come

perch on a nearby tree + listen for a while. I played an Eagles

song to an eagle. I've been revising, rescuing poems out of

my shite folder + converting them to stories + essays, experimenting

w/keeping them flashy and micro. why do they work as prose?

changing the Romantic 'I' to third person allows some distance

for readers (if any) tho I find myself adding thoughts about other

people, since stories seem to require tension between humans, unless

you're Jack London, who I've re-read recently. not everything, I'm

avoiding the dog stories he's remembered for now, but at one time

he was the best-selling writer in America and a marxist if not an

anarchist. anti-capitalist in any case tho able to make money outside

industrialist economy, making his publisher rich of course, + buy a ship

+ just sail away to adventures, writing as he went. even popularized

surfing. w/my revisions + editing I always hold the question WWWD—

What Would Wakoski Do? tho it's so ingrained now. cant bring myself

to try to be pithy—you explained that word to me—like, say,

WS Merwin, who we lost this year. so I go with the image.

I wrote him, thanking him for his writing and including my chapbook.

I mentioned you. he wrote back + said to tell you hello.

xi

lightning season in Central Oregon. strikes to the east, at 0800.

isolated cells dropping strikes everywhere the whole day. engine

guys running around just containing a fire going on to the next.

nothing around me tho—strikes yes, but no fires. starting to take

it personal, but last year I had more stupid human tricks—abandoned

woodcutter warming fires. not a lot of people in the mountains

this summer, neither campers nor visitors which I'm also

starting to take personally tho not complaining. and now

getting some overtime! plus nice cool air—thirty degree difference

from yesterday. my favorite time, rain on the roof, thunder rumbling.

no bugs. I expect more of the same mañana. in the 2nd week of August!

went into town for a day off yesterday. no good movies so just

sent poems + stories into the ether. every morning I run or walk

unless like now I'm on the clock early. then a pot of tea + yoghurt

while I read a poetry anthology, the Oxford of American currently

tho the fact that you are not included is fucking bullshit.

after a good dose I dive into writing revising or editing—better

in the morning, radio quiet, unlike now—almost dark w/rain—

they could leave all these single-tree fires, won't go anywhere

might burn up some fuel and go out but adrenaline is pouring

out of the speakers. you should see the clouds:

huge towering cumulus anvilheads. wall of rain to the north.

xii

after a week of august heat a week of lightning and blessed

cool clouds, plus overtime + firefighters running all over

chasing smokes. so everyone is happy. I've finally felt useful,

calling in some smokes tho, for example, I called in two

last saturday then the whole area submerged in rain all night.

three days later + still puddles on the road. now on two days off

two months to go if we dont get a season-ending event

or the government doesnt shut down. or the zombie apocalypse.

reading Han Shan + Stone House in maybe not greatest translation

but still the refusal both to participate in a corrupt economy

+ corrupt spiritual practice even if—for Stone House—

he was the head of that power structure. I prefer the chinese

mountain men to the american version. here I'd have to wear furs

+ own lots of guns so people would leave me alone. in China

I'd be respected. or that's my Romantic vision based on poetry

500-700 years old. any loners retreating to the woods now

are probably rounded up + put in internment camps. or forced

to work in smartphone factories. but we're americanos, let's not

think of those things. still tho, puertoriqueños just ousted a corrupt

governor w/huge street protests—when will that happen here?

I know, what am I doing about it. well, not making things worse.

I hope. I really do believe tho that creative people, especially poets,

create the world, like Heidegger wrote. too bad about the nazi thing.

but then, most college professors I've known and worked with

always kowtowed to authority. what did their students learn.

xiii

mid-august, Tower Point Lookout. warm + sunny this morning

then low stratus clouds pour over the Cascades + rain all afternoon.

'socked in' in the clouds + it's my day off so I'm earning overtime.

with luck my duty officer will forget I'm up here + I'll extend

until 2000 as previously scheduled. not a season-ending event but

we're not going to get into severity this summer either. fire danger

got to 'high' last week but will go down to moderate tomorrow

tho by friday will be dry + sunny again tho breezy. nothing to do

but curl up in bed + read—Jim Harrison + Stone House

'discovering' Katherine Mansfield finally at 50 via Chekhov

tho she wasn't brought back until the 90s + postcolonial studies.

Stone House lived like this for 15 years all year round—asked

to then lead a zen monastery which he did for seven years then quit

+ came back up to his mountain for another twenty—he had more

temperate weather but some poems got so cold he burned saplings.

I'd never read Harrison's first novel Wolf I realized so now am—

one last pleasurable jewel to honor his passing, actually the poet

I've seen most, or heard, at readings—twice at MSU + at least

once in Santa Fe tho maybe twice—didn't appreciate him until

my thirties when I left New Mexico + came back to Michigan

to help mom build her retirement house near Empire. I've been

writing about Michigan this summer. I never explored the beautiful

parts, the northern parts, until my 40s when Jackson sucked me back in.

never had a problem w/the land tho I never cared for the winters.

the people tho mostly disappointed. bitter + angry. every time I go

back there I get hurt so much I forget the kindnesses like your poetry

nights + good food. any friends always left because no jobs. my mother

+ father who I finally stopped trying to please much too late.

that was part of the early hurt, the divorce + being exchanged

'like a potted plant' as one therapist said in Ypsilanti during grad school

when I almost quit from frustration + anger—she didn't save my life

but was the first person to take my point of view + show it to me.

that was the winter I'd drive an hour one-way in a blizzard

to your house just to be with poetry + wine. I wonder could I have

skipped those last few years in Michigan + gone directly to fire lookouting.

dinner time here. something warm. boil rice + heat up tikka masala

my sister brought me w/toasted pita. add cayenne pepper.

xiv

moisture from a pacific tropical storm in from the southwest—

huge anvilhead cumulonimbus. lightning out in the southern

desert + just east on the mesas. whole area got a soaking tho.

already one engine going after a small juniper down south

of Hwy 20. more smokechasing tonight + tomorrow—all little

stuff that would just go out or putter around + burn fuel.

I give weather updates over the radio—they have radar of course

+ lightning maps but apparently do listen to me—

hard to believe—+ pre-position engines. also just getting folks

out of the field when this weather moves in—rain turns

roads to mud. there's a bunch of cold wet bowhunters

in the woods right now or maybe they all said fuck it + went

into town to drink. flannel shirt weather. just plucking my guitar

watching all directions clouds + waterdogs + ground strikes—

a rainbow. I tried reading Faulkner up here but just dont care

about a bucket of scorpion-rich white mississippians screwing

each other over. I'm besieged by rats. or squirrels. something

skittering around outside at night trying to find a way inside.

gnawing at the vents + doors. HP Lovecraft's rats in the walls.

I've gone full-on rat poison—I need to sleep + dont want hantavirus.

I hope they go back to their holes to die w/o poisoning raptors.

hawks come everyday to hover towerlevel over the butte.

+ eagles + falcons + buzzards. occasional crows. six weeks left!

xv

already a week into september! rain has come—felt it

yesterday, autumn is here. we had some lightning last week,

with rain, tho the Glass Butte Fire down south—

alas I didn't call it in, couldn't see it through the clouds—

burned into the night, 10 acres, but finally washed down the hill

overnight. I called in a single struck juiniper to the

southeast but it too got rain. right now there's a dark wall

to the west rolling off the Cascades—will probably

track to my north, but anyways I'm back to 8-hr days

+ taking two days off—woke this morning in clouds—had the

windows shut all day wearing long pants + flannel—No

bugs or rodents at least. best time to be at the

tower—clouds + rain on roof, wind, no worry

about missing the Big One. wish I could stay up

here longer, look for something else—wolves maybe.

a litter of them caught on camera up on the Warm Springs

Reservation to the northwest—surprisingly close to Mt. Hood

w/Portland just beyond. I hope they make it. seems like

they'd come down to the Ochocos + if they crossed the

Crooked River to the Maury's they'd have all kinds of space.

but this is rancher country. Sacred Cows. they'll leave

straggler cows in the forest to die over the winter but if a

wolf pack killed one they'd howl (the ranchers,

not the wolves). I had a wolf pack come down near Tripod LO

on the Boise one summer—their howls not scary at all—primal.

they killed one cow so the ranchers killed seven of them.

but the moon rising.

xvi

I seem to be in a 'season-ending event'—rained last night

'socked in' most of today in the clouds w/more rain + tonight

snow to 7000' + tomorrow down to 6500'. Tower Point is 6300.

my boss warned me yesterday that I may be pulled down end

of the month instead of going to mid-october + I cant see how

or why they wouldn't. fire danger basically in the negatives

at this point. I finally got the heater working—last night w/strong

gusty winds I went through 15 matches. probably will be on

for the remainder of my time. I still have tomorrow + wednesday

off, if I can drive out thru the mud puddles. but I had a productive,

restful day. read poetry for breakfast, then revised an essay

about being a fire lookout that an editor actually requested—

about a day from hell at Aztec Lookout, Ed Abby's old tower

+ my first season—some prepper hunters messed w/me,

teenagers showed up w/a cooler of beer to party all night

+ a crazy guy appeared after hours + tried to force the trapdoor

+ threatened me + when the LEOs arrived they blamed me

for everything + not being the welcoming Forest Service face.

the District stopped staffing that tower after that. two years

later the whole area burned up. I worked on a short story all

afternoon. I'd started it, but was scared to attempt to finish it

because I didn't know if I could or if it would be good or a waste.

I have to label stories 'notes' in order to tell myself that what I

write doesn't have to be good, tho usually take a lot of those notes

as they are. (dont tell myself). like poetry, I never know what's

going to happen but need to have a basic idea to start. the rest

gets worked out in the process + hours pass.

xvii

well, it's decided: staying up until October 11th. amazed

+ grateful. I would have been ok coming down next week

two weeks early + had been telling my friends + sister that I was.

the mountain drenched in rain. I've been on two days off.

drove up this afternoon + almost got stuck in a mudbog—

I'll have to use a different route down (I have three)—

cant see the Sisters or the Ochocos so cant tell if they have any.

when I arrived I had rain + a little hail. here for hunter fires—

no restrictions, not like last year, but all hunters light campfires

even if sleeping in trailers these days. I would too in a big group.

but some tend to not put them out when they leave.

70% of all wildfires human-caused + not just hunters.

Cerro Pelado Lookout one summer one same guy camping

every Sunday night caused an escaped campfire every monday.

+ he probably never knew. but we've had four days of rain here.

cold rain. winter has come. an fire wouldnt go anywhere.

but, it's submitting season—in town I sent out a bunch of

writing—poems, stories. all for what? all of us unknown writers

thinking maybe someone will notice + offer us a book deal. ha.

so then it's just for the process, submitting part of process,

creating a space for words in + against a world that doesn't care.

but when a complete stranger does care + accepts something—

a miracle. for about a week. then back to the slog.

I've been part of a new literary magazine in actual print

just came out, proud of having brought out others' work.

who knows how many people will read it. 300? on the other hand,

how amazing that 300 people will read it. at MSU I was assistant

editor of the Red Cedar Review—still kicking, though they

never take any of my stuff. raining again. mountains in clouds.

xviii

surprise! coming down early after all! pre-october!

so this is it! last night at the tower! I am sad I admit

but also ready to leave + go down into civilization like a

fool. four different prescribed fires burning today—one

last glimpse of smoke—they're getting them in before the cold

front this weekend—snow down to 3000' thursday or friday.

rain all weekend—which is why my boss is pulling me.

FS LOs to the north all staying one more pay period. Crazy.

but normal. I'll be back next summer—the BLM treats me

well, w/per diem + mileage, + they mostly like me, tho some

think they dont need the tower anymore. they'd rather spend

more money on less effective new technology. I may be

the last generation of fire lookouts, tho we're cheap + easy

to please—just leave us alone. one guy over at Aldrich

LO quit early. not for everyone. if I got an offer

for a meaningful 'real job' which allowed me to survive

in the 'real world' I might—if it were a new adventure—

teaching again, tho I think that's done—maybe teach abroad,

tho that doesn't pay well at all—I'm in voluntary poverty—

er, simplicity, but I'm happier than I've been. ever.

wish you could visit. you're welcome any time. I wish

we could go to the movies together again. I wonder what you

thought of the latest Tarantino. I miss Michigan autumns,

the melancholy leaves, but I dont miss Michigan—too much

hurt back there. no one can hurt me up here. but I'm leaving!
mañana I'll be showered + presentable. alas.

thank you for the company. un abrazo. vale.

 

Notable Essay in BAE 2023

 

You guys! My epistolary essay in last year's South Dakota Review, "Letters to Wakoski" made it to the "Notable Essays" in the back of this year's Best American Essays 2023. That means it made it to the top 100 essays. Third time this has happened. I'm knocking on their door!

You can buy that issue of SDR here:

https://www.coyotestore.usd.edu/product-p/56_3.htm

 

 

Cher Vincent: Letters to Van Gogh

Originally appeared in the Canadian literary journal THE LIT QUARTERLY (no longer with us) back in 2021.

 

Feb 19

What thoughts I have of you Vincent reading your letters traveling thru Amsterdam + Antwerp + Brussels watching you go through obsessions: being a pastor, your cousin, painting seeing how people saw you as naive idiot. If only they'd read you tho they saw your art + did nothing + I secretly thought about being a minister except don't like people even Unitarians so just studied religions on my own. Never learned to draw would've just drawn naked ladies. My favorite paintings not even in your museum: the smoking skull + peasant's shoes tho that from Heidegger's essay + were they really a peasant woman's shoes or just your own like in the Willem Defoe movie. Sharing your love of the dignity of the poor and sadness that they reject creatives. I too want to live in a small town in the country + write poems but I'd get shot too tho I like fitting in in cities like Portland + Salem, everyone in Brussels + Antwerp thinks I'm German which I guess is a compliment even w/Germany holding austerity over everyone's heads making the poor pay for the mistakes + greed of the rich but I like free flow of people across borders like you had + your disinterest in manual labor not laziness like your father accused—you saw lower class working life as a no-win situation after the coal mines of southern Belgium. Something else growing in your heart, crazy thought that people would pay you money for art + thinking too of your brother Theo, his monthly payments keeping you alive out of love not pity—he was maybe the only who didn't, taking your letters to heart + saving them all! Only more amazingly Johanna recognized their value when you both died. You could've been a writer, a dutch Charles Dickens but saw not in words but light tho my favorites the dark ones, all blacks + browns and were you bi-polar? Your letters seem uncomfortably so—your uninvited pursuit of your cousin (tho violence never anything you'd resort to) making me almost skip ahead a year or two. Also your begging + bitterness + gratefulness to Theo for money. He always knew you'd do something even when no one would buy your paintings + neither did you cut off your ear for a whore but for Gauguin by way of apology to say you're right I didn't listen to you or to spite him + say I won't listen to you. You just gave it to the barmaid you both knew as if that was ok somehow but shows people believe what they want to believe—love for a whore making a better story than love for another man('s paintings) + we mostly see what we want to see except when people like you come along and show us not another world but another way to see ours ourselves in it + creating it which is what Heidegger thought though you wouldn't have liked him but with you seeing is feeling, maybe that was the problem w/your cousin or your whole life seeing + feeling + no one feeling what you saw + felt which means how we see light is how we feel—Dear Vincent, your letters come at a good time or the right time—I came all the way here just to read them just to need them + your light.

Feb 21

I went to Antwerp + toured old tunnels, open-air sewers-canals Napoleon ordered covered in true dictator make-the-trains-run-on-time fashion. Thinking of you in the coal mines—rats + weird white fuzz from their droppings, big spiders thriving in warm air, secret door to Jesuit church in case of peasant uprising + not to sneak out to see whores bien sûr—History of the sewers history of the city along w/old printing presses of Museum Plantin-Moretus + original Gutenberg Bible which even I find holy. You walking beaches in England talking already of leaving city for country + quiet but torn b/c of the community of painters (I just accidentally wrote community of writers) in cities tho they all seem to mock you, knowing that when you do move to southern light peasants will too you can't win but at least there will be walks in woods + a friendly barmaid to give you a notebook which will be lost for a hundred years. Everything you do no one will care except Theo not even your common-law wife who will leave you because you're too poor for even her. In a park now in sun near chess players, Hôtel de Ville tower of La Grande Place, trees not yet budding tho young men smoking bud, children in gilles jaunes future budding protestors tho elites have figured out how to take down mobs: accuse anti-semitism and they'll fight amongst themselves while real anti-semites go to top positions or in Amerika just accuse sexual harassment or sex in general + everyone pretends to be horrified. No one knows who's lying anymore so everyone becomes liars even especially ones speaking truth which can't be spoken or not all of it not all the time but I liked your Zola quote:

observer ce qui plaît au public est toujours ce qu'il y a de plus banal, ce qu'on a coutume de voir chaque année, on est habitué à de telles fadeurs, à des mensonges si jolie, qu'on refuse de toute sa puissance les véritès fortes

reminds me of They Live when the best friend fights almost to the death to avoid putting on the sunglasses to see aliens among us + their subliminal messages which is how your letters feel—surrounded by aliens going out of their way to make you feel bad about yourself though these strolling sun people seem ok—I guess the aliens are in the European Parliament conspiring austerity while sincerely wanting economic power to equal Amerika's tho everyone here speaks english especially the Dutch so much theirs will become a dead language, all of which to say I wish you were here to play chess or I'd sit quietly while you sketched. The light is good.

Feb 21?

I see mistakes coming in your letters: living with a woman because you pity her: not love even if you find friendship + tho saying she has become a better person because of you sounds egotistical something is there—two people can + should make each other better people like a band makes musicians better tho I'd like to think it's not relationship or even family—that we all make each other better people in the world but something gets lost + we become trolls + thinking you can save anyone is a trap which is why the Bodhisattva Vow is bullshit, mighty convenient someone will put off enlightenment until all beings attain it yet if we can help someone we should tho a drowning person can pull you under and a dead firefighter's no good to anyone but I wonder if my letters when younger (or now) reveal paths that should have been less taken, if recipients wrote 'uh oh' in margins like I'm doing—firefighting, N., K., New York, grad school, teaching, all interesting if only in the chinese-curse way, all leading right here right now writing in a café in Brussels just like all your mistakes led to your paintings. I know you would have said it was all worth it—not the part about becoming famous after death but the part when still alive, the process, days spent in dunes sketching learning texture turning two dimensions to three + hours in bliss creation which Heidegger used your shoes for to say was necessary, that all along you were helping create the world, paintings + poems the stamp of it. Some would say just sitting still for long periods creates a better world too tho I don't know—meditating seems to right already-wrongs while writing or playing music seems to create the new out on the edge of reality—Basho + Issa did both but I share your need to be out in the woods. I wish you could visit my lookout tower this summer. The women here wear short skirts + tights sometimes which is nice but I don't know how to talk to them w/o seeming strange either, nor do I have any money but you never talk about music which you never had in your life because poor except maybe someone with a fiddle at the pub tho even that what I want to believe—I saw a german movie about painting, Werk Ohne Autor, changed in english bizarrely to Never Look Away but which anyway comes to the conclusion that artists always work with the 'ich' even if they don't realize—no big revelation to you though radical these decades, but the film more conservative than it wanted to admit: ultimate goal of even liberal artists being to get married and have kids + the guy's wife studying fashion design just ends up a mom after working in a factory + being a manic pixie dream girl tho I'd forgive much from an artist who paints like that except Ted Nugent was a great guitarist + a total asshole. I loved the Banksy paintings in Amsterdam for their political satire—also from the ich—+ the girl w/her heart balloon drifting away: did it slip or did she let it go?

Feb 22?

I don't understand people sometimes a lot of times + neither could you in their simple cruelty + lies. I keep thinking I see my old girlfriend the one fluent in German—if I saw anybody in Europe would be her tho I'd expect her to be in Stuttgart or Tübingen. I couldn't resist if it were the sex would be hot. I could do with some hot sex to cover my loneliness. I only get lonely in cities wandering back streets all morning buying Tales of Unrest by Conrad thinking of writing stories questioning not colonialism as much as capitalism which is its cause—social justice warriors perfectly fine w/capitalism—thinking if we just change the leaders everything will be fine + I'm in a café everyone sitting in the cold sun smoking. Bartender thinks I'm british she gave me two sugar cubes just as I'm reading a poem by Bukowski in Les jours s'en vont which I never liked before about a boy feeding horses sugar cubes 'like ice to eagles' somehow the french works for me. He rarely used similes usually just things in themselves. I see you shambling through La Haye in secondhand clothes, all argent going to paints + stamps + yr prostitute girlfriend, not that that was her fault nor even something to be ashamed of tho we all are—ashamed not prostitutes—or maybe it's the other: these days writers have to pay for the chance of publication in reading fees + contests which are just reading fees + none of us will win nevertheless I have poems coming out in The Chiron Review + a long one in the South Dakota Review on this cloudy cold day someone somewhere wants to publish me + someone somewhere—complete strangers—will read me + someone somewhere will even read these letters + think of us + I'm hungry—two falafels for lunch weren't enough—I've been skipping breakfast trying to eat cheap in general. I'd love to be more European mais ça coute chère + you have decided to leave your common-law wife + her kids even knowing she may go back to prostitution but staying isn't doing you or her any good: you need light + space + time to paint to live. Again I'll say you can't stay with someone out of pity. I feel bad for the children but they aren't yours + she won't allow it + she has extended family who all think you're a loser anyways—allons-y! You will be poor + unsuccessful your whole life, you will lose your friendship with Gauguin + be laughed at in the streets, you will be shot by a kid dressed like Billy The Kid but you will have put brush to canvas, ink to paper.

Feb 23

In Bruges! Someone playing "Sweet Dreams" as I climbed the spiral staircase the Belfort, up to dozens of huge bells wired to giant music box carillon with attached keyboard + the Prelude to Bach's first Cello Suite standing right under them LOUD + literally heavy metal. Of course you had church music which must have been magical, probably the only reason I would have gone to church tho you protestants were minimalist back then (scene from Mary, Queen of Scots of bearded scottish minister in the cold dark church, offended a woman would dare hold the throne). I'm sure trains back in your day were just as annoying as now even without cellphones loud people talking when all I want to do is take a nap tho the view: farmland + villages + actual houses + fields, stands of old-growth forest don't exist here anymore—people here don't even realize—no wolves or bears or lions. X-PO Museum had a collection of Picasso illustrations including the Don Quixote + Sancho + Dove of Peace, listing painters he was influenced by: Gauguin + Toulouse-Latrec your friends but not you. Hard to believe + sad—another insult. He must have loved Starry Night + your sketches of lower-class women. I am tired + thirsty from walking all day over cobblestone + en español Bruges se llama Brujas: Witches, great name for a city tho not what it means en français or dutch, being a shortened name for by-the-sea. I did go into the cathedral—didn't burst into fire—all that work + detail paid by tithing the poor who probably didn't even mind or maybe merchants. The light good today—spring here in february with snow in Tucson + Las Vegas.

Feb 24

Most uncomfortable in yr letters the necessity of asking for money you think you deserve, dependent on Theo even when he angers you—what all artists go thru in various ways but better than selling soul or body even though feels like it + maybe just is but also your parents not understanding nor anyone really except Theo tho not until later will he + Johanna know how good you are. Yesterday I walked around Bruxelles w/Reagan, we sat in a small park + talked like dozens of others in the sun for free. You getting out of the city for the light though your black + white work reflecting interiors of rooms + lives while your paints taught to re-see exterieurs + surfaces + Gauguin never had texture—I'm waiting for him to go out of fashion as a colonialist exploiter of women of color tho fortunately naked ladies in general are still ok—nobody'll come after Picasso or even Modigliani tho I wonder if Klimt's clothed ladies will ever be recognized. Painting naked ladies a good way to pick up chicks along w/having a motorcycle + playing the guitar tho Reagan theorizes that les filles don't like creatives anymore, his students rolling their eyes at boyfriends in bands. Can't fault them for not wanting to be manic pixie dream girls anymore. I always wanted a fellow creative on the road but keep missing her—anyways might be like Rutger Hauer tells Joan Chen in Blood of Heroes that juggers can't fuck each other tho in the end they do at least once. All of which is to say Vincent that I await your escape to France for days of happiness if still poor then at least free tho already your dark moods appearing but I like to think of Head of A Skeleton which you painted with a lit self-rolled cigarette: that you kept some humor in yr life if not your letters that there might have been laughter.

 

Feb 25

Bought my ticket back to Amsterdam: less than a week left in Bruxelles—trop vite! Trying not to think about l'argent I've spent not so much trips to Antwerp + Brujas as daily meals. Oui, des frites but halfway healthy falafels + phô tho sometimes can't resist a baguette at a boulangerie nibbling + walking thru streets flaneuring but losing weight by walking everywhere—didn't end up being a big french-speaking trip hélàs, everyone just speaks english on hearing my accent. My social life the same as in Amerika: in bed by ten, certainly not going to just walk up to les femmes + talk—what kind of madman would attempt that? Meanwhile sitting in a café w/really loud music which prevents people talking on phones tho I'd prefer those Brujas bells + more Bach—I wonder if you ever got to hear Bach even on the organ, not just Toccata + Fugue in D Minor (saddest of all keys) but all of it pretty dark + intense + non-christian-y. Bach in his solo instrument works created ways to sound like more than one person, Whitman's 'I contain multitudes'—ourselves in concert with ourselves or con-versation. Charles Bukowski saw you as a role model: creating in and out of poverty and la lucha tho he would've thought the ear being for Gauguin pathetic + chastised you for seeking community w/other artists but I've had that void all my life too sitting there staring back at me. A gutshot a slow + painful way to go yet you never denounced the kid—there's a story we'll never know the middle of. Your last painting of yellow wheatfields, yr happy color tho The Bedrooms look sick + warped but of course it's closest to pure light. I'm in the wind in that field + wheat-light with yr need for bread + heat + smell of ploughed earth, crow caws + trees bustling in their hedgerows, smile of the barmaid bringing wine end of the day.

Feb 26

Je viens de manger dans un resto syrie, falafels et du riz et something a little like channa masala w/pita bread which isn't called pita tho the owner refilled my basket w/great concern very happy I was enjoying myself, making me real moroccan tea stuffed with mint. I wanted to apologize for my government but neither of our french was up for that task—imagine what Belgium did to the Congo—did you know at all what was going on—+ would you have liked Heart of Darkness? Imagine choosing between english + french to write novels in—Conrad knew polish wasn't going to get him anything. Your later letters in french + I'm studying latin in which you sometimes drop phrases in your letters. Cicero now a literary + political hero ending up with head + hands chopped off: warning to other writers + democracy lovers. What happened to you in Divinity school in Amsterdam? One letter you're excited to become a pastor the next a year later you're bitter + mocking religion tho you never stopped being spiritual. Art was God. I'm in my room now probably as small as some of yours + yes even yellow walls! In early for the evening to write letters + read, a young beautiful frenchwoman playing piano in the room next door, a Chopin nocturne....

Feb 27

Less than a week—I leave Brussels on Sunday, reading your letters here in this library café—maybe I'll meet a bookish women + have a tryst tho my thinking always goes well I'll be gone soon so why try + since I'm always going to be gone soon....Today a man asked me for directions to the Magritte Museum, my accent apparently so bad he switched to english to say 'sank you'. I swear 15 years ago my spoken french was pas mal but I'm not sure you would have liked Magritte—too sleek with weird apples + eyes not a true reflection of reality which you wouldn't have done tho Yellow Room looks odd—I suspect it's how you really saw it somehow + certainly Starry Night plus Magritte was rich + famous in his lifetime. My favorite of his an outline of a bird in flight thru it sky + clouds—sky + clouds flying and he did use lots of light as much your wheatfields. Are yr self-portraits a lack of money for models? Some get odd—bright pinks + greens + of course yellows—seeing yourself different—which Magritte never did nor Picasso to my knowledge + a woman who actually liked you had a nervous breakdown, everyone including yr family blaming you, the local minister offering yr models money not to pose for you which they didn't accept but the message clear: you are not welcome wherever you go. Theo eventually lets you work in his gallery in Paris. Speaking of letting—I got an essay accepted in an academic journal special issue on Green Theory + Praxis + creative writing which anytime anyone uses the word praxis look out but included contract stating I wouldn't get paid, that I couldn't re-use my own essay for any for-profit publication + that I'd have to get permission, for a small fee, from them to reprint. I wrote back about rewriting the contract but the professor/editor wrote back no, not possible but that he'd be 'happy' to 'allow' me to use the piece again. el muy hijo de puta académico—va te faire foutre! Glad I got out of academia when I did otherwise I'd've punched someone in the face. My friend Rick advised to go along with it + simply ignore the contract later if/when I ever get a collection of essays published (ha).

sans date

Your teeth falling out in your thirties. You smoke too much, you're sick + dizzy + only eat bread to save enough argent for paints + inks + canvas—True that in your self-portraits you're never smiling. I'm close to losing a tooth or two—bottom incisors loose. Then I'll never get chicks except chicks w/no teeth. Can't afford an operation which may or may not help, not covered by insurance so no more apples! One of yr letters you write Theo about expenses saying you have to buy dresses for yr models to wear—is there something going on Vincent? Is this related to why the villagers hated you? Something else certainly—yr dizziness, depression, doctors telling you you need to rest yet you need to work to make money to have a place to rest in. A woman who saw yr hands + thought you were an iron worker. I'm sure Magritte's hands were fine—his whole life was fine. People still thought Bukowski looked homeless after he bought a house in San Pedro + drove a BMW. One time in Jackson at Key Largo Lounge I came in wearing a p-coat + watch cap + everyone stared, woman barfly convinced I was a private investigator, said I was lying when I told her I taught english. Thankfully now not, tho miss being in the classroom when learning was going on either by me or my students—I still have thoughts of going all-out Paulo Friere turning the class over to the students having them decide what + how to learn from each other—would chaos ensue or actual learning or both? I never slept with a student tho got a few offers—not sure if it makes it better I wanted to fuck the smartest but anyways now I'm a fire lookout + un espión en Bruxelles trying to determine how real people live in lonely cities + who actually wears all this lingerie here it's madness. I guess I could play more music if I lived here + did go to a zen sit one night so could survive as long as I had a quiet room that's all you need just a space in the world + the brain to create a clearing to gather force + push out again. What if you had gone to Amerika + ended up in Taos like Georgia O'Keefe painting buffalo skulls + got run out of town there too or shot by a cowboy. Last day of sun—came in w/cold rain will go out w/it. Violinist busking near Mont des Arts professional-level Bach sonata + everyone just passes him by....

sans date

So glad you're going to Paris to work for Theo. Every time I go there it's cold + rainy but it'll be good for you to work in the gallery studying paintings + access to others in museums—your painting + thinking will change forever + you'll get to talk to other painters most especially Gauguin. I liked the line from yr last letter about women: Les relations avec les femmes sont d'une grande importance pour l'art. You said a wife would better yr art + yet your art did not suffer for lack of one. Maybe it would have turned out different tho I feel the same always always wanting approval of women but not sure if you mean just a manic pixie dream girl because I've always wanted a woman who has her own thing: cellist or mandolin player or fellow poet-jugger even a politician as long as radically liberal (but please god not an academic or composition instructor) when really I just fall in love w/baristas + banktellers b/c they're the only ones I talk to + they smile at me. Watching a beautiful interesting woman enter a café or even just a beautiful one when I'm writing feels like I could either talk to her or create—that desire turning into + onto the page to write something she would praise tho to give it to her would be creepy I suppose—keeping her in ideal mode b/c nothing ever works tho there have been women just like you described Vincent where I have to talk to her— not in a while maybe I don't want to or think I do but I just like to be alone tho I'd like to paint someone's toenails sometimes. Too scared of rejection scared of disappointment scared of hurting someone scared my sexual perversions won't align w/her sexual perversions tho have to say I've been lucky in that regard—that or a lot more women are sexually perverse than we think. I'm probly making you blush or degoutant-ing you. I'm just interested in the sexual-profane + spiritual + you in the sexual-spiritual which you later drop to spiritual which is how you start thinking you'll be a pastor in England. Maybe I'll stop thinking about sex but not here in Bruxelles w/all these black tights. They're everywhere Vincent, we'd better go to the woods + become shepherds.

Feb 28

I hope París goes well—less letters from you. I'm in the Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts w/Dutch Masters, you're not here—too late. You surely must have seen Bruegal, may not have liked the weird stuff but surely appreciated satire of Dutch society. La Chutte des Anges Rebelles using images from Amerika like an armadillo to portray a devil. Did you ever see Bosch? Where did he come from? Heavy metal 500 years before heavy metal he must have horrified you tho perhaps you'd like Breugal's La Chute D'Icare. I already knew it from William Carlos Williams + Auden so won't try to top their descriptions (this is Europe—to stand where masters stood) except to say there's a narrative and/or a lesson, something you never wanted in a painting. Line up your self-portraits you'd get the Andy Warhols in Brujas—Otherwise it's a whole bunch of dying Christs in here. Jan Brueghal (Bruegal's son) also got weird, especially Bacchus orgies + naked ladies. La Tour de Babel by Joos de Momper horrifying in its way—in collaboration w/Frans Francken who did the rich people in the foreground checking out how things are going changing the parable a little tho the tower looming-ish + even tho I got here early to avoid the crowds the place still overrun w/field-trip children—younger ones seem to handle museums better w/wonder but any older + all they want to look at is each other. Not sure what the hell I would have thought at seven if I'd seen a Bosch in person—nightmares for years. Back then in museums I learned it was ok to like naked ladies which was so totally wrong in Amerika or that is we all like them but we're shamed to look meaning sex which was true back then thus Bacchus orgy paintings—not real sex just a myth to show how bad it is but more interesting than portraits of rich people in poofy white collars tho curators did a good job showing earlier crowd scenes + temptations of St. Anthonies to show where Breugal came from. Maybe Vincent you didn't paint demons because you were yr own but now I'm tired + my feet are sore time for lunch.

March 1

You're already in Arles inspired + painting! París couldn't have been too bad if you stayed almost three years—longest anywhere since you started sur la route. I didn't stay anywhere for more than eight months in the 90s. I laughed in one letter how painters degoutent you just like people. I sometimes feel that way about poets (+ their poetry) who probably feel the same about me: spent two years in a MFA program with people who wrote stuff like 'My name is Veronica / I live in a harmonica', came out 30,000 in debt + no real friends. Was happy to leave. No one from class ever wrote or published again. I wonder if we'd have Gauguin w/o you pushing for him w/Theo. You only sold one painting in your lifetime + yet continue: the process is the meaning. One would like to think misery not a precondition to creation we just neglect other things supposedly more important + you've given up love, quoting Richepin: l'amour de l'art fait perdre l'amour vrai. It's more like you never found love + so immersed yrself in love of art tho who am I to write about love I don't believe in it only like + lust I guess ergo no relationship in 15 years + that a long-distance phone sex thing—perfect: intimacy confessing dark fantasies in the dark to a voice. That was Santa Fe. We stopped + I moved away. Don't know if I'll ever get excited about a woman again. They still look good + I like talking to women more than men but I'm like you I like my solitude in woods or city, can't waste time w/just sex tho if it happens I won't turn it down but it's never going to happen if I don't put in some effort alors voilà. Brussels cold + rainy again I'm in the library staying warm until a movie this afternoon + some falafels. Two more days. You out to the woods painting w/Gauguin, poets don't write poems together. I too wanted a community of creatives to share + talk with came close a couple times but people drift + stop + get married + have kids + I guess that's meaningful too tho doesn't feel like a choice. I'm w/Emma Goldman + Simone de Beauvoir: marriage bad at worst, unnecessary at least but nobody today reads those essays.

March 3rd

Leaving Bruxelles by train in the rain backpack filled w/books. I stayed on the edges so I could look in windows + look out. Graffitti-names the only color this morning, their need to create something in something ugly, a word you've never used in your letters not even to describe London, only degoutant to describe people's behavior. You took this same route north under same low stratus clouds passing windmills having the urge to charge yelling 'have at you!' but you didn't read Don Quixote, you would have wanted to be a shepherd. Glad your health is better—I too find being healthier good for art tho a whole night life world here I've not seen. Every european town Barcelona Sevilla Salamanca Marseilles I'm always in bed reading by ten. Think of all the Before Sunrise experiences I could have had! Still romantic enough to think if I met a woman I'd change my life + move here in which case why don't I just move here. Working on my novel Dawn revising + editing feeling that alivenesss you talk about in the process + I didn't even want to write another novel except the main character—the real person she's based on— came in a dream and asked me to write it (just now wrote 'right it'). Tho do another? Not that I'll stop writing but all that work + time into a novel—I know some painters take time on paintings but in Arles you did one a day as if you knew—should I spend more time on smaller stuff novels make money. Shouldn't be for the money but as you know it'd be nice. Amazingly people somewhere like you still want to read them. Long stories merging/changing our own long stories something about time—in which created + in which experienced —doesn't take long to see one of your paintings to shift how we see if only a little while maybe forever which is why we should always seek out art in all forms so as to constantly be shifting ergo growing—being requires growth otherwise we're only existing. I don't know how people go thru life just doing that I guess they don't know any better or are not allowed to. To teach the humanities to teach how to live which is why it's being cut in schools. In my teens I already knew I wasn't going to make money at writing or anything because you can't live ethically + be rich so vowed to live rightly + interestingly. So far not incompatible with scribbling.