Hello friends. There’s nothing grand today. Sometimes the grandness is exhausting. This is a simple message serving its purpose: existence. That is, there’s nothing to necessarily report. But maybe you’re used to that. Aren’t you?
A lot of text messages don’t mean anything in themselves: it’s the existence which matters. A “good morning” means just as much as some “i love you” – the contents are negligible, even a “i hate you” works too. To tap each other on the shoulder, in an attempt to transfigure conversation as action. Conversation is quite good at this illusion so it seems.
It’s been a long time since I talked to anyone new in person. Sure fun it could be: a realm of possibility. A chance to suspend another’s teardrops from previous days.
I would say the real loss of youth isn’t in one’s beauty, but realm of possibility. Each new venture now so shoved in one’s stuffed internal bookshelf. Inevitably one competes against prior seasonal hits. It’s best to compromise and understand those you meet later aren’t for a new story, but rather to fan through their selection. Their being, so they insist!
When you do accept this alternative, you can at least savor the footnote explanations: to live by its telling, rather than formation. Maybe the orators of our past held a fondness for a night where they felt their story alive in the eyes of the eager. Trace moments and creases upon the current page they may hover over a later day.
Unfortunately, to brace oneself as the after-hours viewer so a detachedness one will need. It’s important to never forget that you are the viewer, and never a contender for anything. You may mean nothing to them by the end of it – whatever meaning scrounged could be found in how you’d help them rearrange the events for some soothing or impact.
There’s always an objective to a storyteller, though they won’t clue you in. Perhaps the purest ones hope to impart a smile.
Yes, this realm of possibility so swept away and swindled with each tick of age. By the time you’re 50 you’re comparing notes on whether any compatibility remains in past tastes. In this sense, I suppose it’s wise to clutch onto your younger relationships: unless you enjoy being the existential bookkeeper. Or the one who doesn’t mind being a contender of nothing. To live for others’ stories rather than one’s own.
Maybe a melancholic painting to you, but there’s much satisfaction in being a background character. You have nothing to hurt and nothing to get hurt by. Whatever happens so happens around you, and whatever way you animate so others animate the dead through you. There’s no real demand, other than making sure you keep yourself composed as the stand-in.
And perhaps this all renders as a white flag to wave, though the trek toward the background character isn’t necessarily a dejected one. Listening to many stories and producing some of your own, eventually a realization comes: in most cases, one delivers their failed ideals through the womb of other bodies. It’s really twisted when you see it. But it also makes perfect sense in our perfect world.
Ultimately, I like to keep my internal bookshelf as empty as possible. Because I’d rather work on the script right now, with you here. More than anything else.
It may be that the prior books could glean some capability hints, could glean this is something more than another evanescence. But instead of trying to construct any sort of permanence in our melting lines, it’s best to hop between each fading existence. Glory may be fleeting, but beauty is to swing between each moment indefinitely. In a way, to keep blooming.
Hand me some stories if you want. There’s room if you’re living with me. Though maybe you’ll eventually figure it out too: it’s more fun to swing from evening to evening.