Correspondence 10/16/06: slow current

So Friend,

Here we are again. I don’t have much time: Slate will be home in a little more than an hour and the chain of Monday events will roll into place: couchtime, dinnertime, triviatime. But I wanted to let you know that there’s a little scratchy monster in the back of my throat, and while I’m fairly sure it’s leftover allergy blahs, we can hope it’s all this cold weather kicking me in my pants for the unrequited love I’ve slobbed all over it.

The itching’s also doing funny things to my day. I still don’t know where they’re going so fast, but I’m spending part of the moments I’ve got convincing myself that Milwaukee’s where it’s at. No, no, no, after all the grudging yielding to Slate’s and my burning desire for a dog, I’m not giving up this apartment that easily. A porch in Milwaukee? Hm. But I’m inching my way back to school. Likely, another distance relationship to add to my narrative.

Today I had conversational occasion to count the years I’ve been clutching onto this bachelor’s degree like a tabletop in the sea. It’s not much in terms of protection and it’s certainly not providing me with nourishment. (Needless to say, I actually did *not* count the years, and I still won’t. We don’t want to risk the little emotional downpour that might happen, do we? Not on trivia night. Not here in front of this nice window, storm panes pulled shut now.) It’s been several. Almost many. I think I’ve done the whole life experience thing.

But you’re very right - I do wonder if it’s just the protection of a schoolbook’s womb I want. Do I care about the education? In the very same conversation today, I discounted much of what I learned back there in the middle of the largest Amish community this side of the country. It was a great time. I’d never be the same without it. All the obvious statements. But I don’t remember what makes past participle different from past tense or even amo amas amat. I remember a lot of deciding what an author was trying to say. Is Seymour Jesus? Sure. Is he also a representation of JFK, Muhammed Ali, Everyman, and the problem of woman in the 1940s? Sure. There aren’t any answers. (Is that what I learned? If so, and if it was purposeful, it’s sure strange that school would be structured in a way to make you think you didn’t need school to learn that one particular lesson. I realize this is all English major specific stumbling- and mildly heart-guided English major stumbling at that... bear with me)

Honestly, I *do* value learning that there aren’t any answers. It’s essentially the only truth. (Aside: if I’d been a philosophy major, would I have learned that there are no answers *and* how to disguise the fact? And a psych major the same thing and how to deal with it? The thought that the English major gets plopped down in this barren wintry flatland and left alone without his knife and without his match makes me smile. Not because I think it’s noble like that little metaphor hints at, but because, I think, he was asking for it. You and me looked into the pool, saw that there was no water, and jumped anyway. Because surely a pool is a pool, water or not, and no hole exists without deeper meaning.) We’re just expert drifters, I think. That’s where the stand-alone knowledge of all things’ transparent nature gets us.

Let’s see where this year’s going to take us. Because my year is starting very soon. New Year’s really needs to be much more of a mobile feast. I’m predicting November 20th this year. But we’ll have to see what the moon does.

My new tea is very nice. I should send you a little, and we’ll have tea together next time.

As ever,

T