Correspondence 10/18/06: a haunting and Hallow's coming

Hey Sal,

Can’t sleep... I’ve been a bit under the weather (can I go a letter without mentioning it? doubtful) lately and ended up sleeping all day... meaning, of course, that I will most likely relive once again the Stevenson 318 cycle: awake until 5:30 or 6:00, asleep until noon or 1:00, unable to sleep again tomorrow night. Of course I’m missing that good Old español with prof. Palmer at whatever ungodly hour the Presbyterians think education begins.
Anyway here I am, 3 am, noticing there’s just a hint of red light outside. Surely some extra from downtown and not the sun. We’re still in our cozy little daylight savings bubble and it’s disappearing way before cute little Katherine downstairs is put to her bed. Still, I’ve never noticed that extra light, and *that* extra light has brought my eyes over to the neighborly lights shining through our windbreak of a stand of trees... living in an apartment and on a busy road, we haven’t really thought to walk over and introduce ourselves, but it’s nice to know someone else is up; it’s our one note of morse code. “Present.” Or, maybe just “yes.”
Every once in awhile, I hear Slate rustling the sheets back in the bedroom. That’s another ‘present’ that’s good to hear. No doubt she’s reclaiming my side of the bed. No doubt come 4 or 5 my guilt of leaving her alone on this chilly October night will get the best of me and I’ll be balancing on no more than eight inches of mattress. I know that, despite my knack for exclusively long-term relationships, we both thought I’d be the one settling down at 50 or 70. In fact, you specifically told me not to date your sister once, because I was meant to be the one who swooped in from Burma with little notice, bringing tea and scarves to the adults and paintings of strange animals to her children, before lifting off again to another unimaginable place.
I think when this letter finally reaches you it will be in Argentina. Not sure if you still have any responsibility or life in Vegas or not; my instinct tells me that that little vacation you were going to take ended up being something of a soul/heritage search.
So we’re both now in the second half of our twenties... and it seems all things are turned upside down. I can’t say I’m terribly surprised. I was always driving around the state visiting you and my crazy friends like you, yes, but it was always with the intention of locking myself in a room with you, pouring the Carlo like water, getting down to the business of ‘deep’ conversation and thought. You wanted to show me Rusty’s, you wanted to see McGaw and whatever coffee shop I was attached to at the moment.
Of course this cursed mind always works faster than my fingers will type (particularly as they now must be so careful with the deep impressions the Galaxie 12 makes in paper) so I’ve thought ahead to where this letter goes after I expose the early obviousness of our respective positions. Some of the possible ideas and topics got rather personal. They’ll stay where they are, for now - elephants trained gradually, first with chain bolted to deep pole, later with a simple length of string tied to a stick a few inches down in the earth - but we do have an important decision to make regarding their conversational merits. I’d rather not lead those elephants through the Alps; I learned my lesson the first eight or so times (he says, with a smile of bittersweet remembrance that in no way implies grudge or resentment). But if the weather’s clear and the land is flat, we could take a nice ride down the river, pointing out the flora and fauna to each other as we go.
I’m not sure it’s necessary. But the Officially Declared Starting-Off Point would be a nice agreement to come to. After all, someday you’ll swoop in from Argentina, strange poetry in hand, and I’ll have to know what color bath towel to hang in the guest room for you.

I apologize for the long aside, and for the continuing of this note. But may this blessed continuance serve to protect us from a trailing awkward silence as well as proof that this letter actually did have a purpose before I started knocking so much dust off these keys.
Me. Settling down. (Of course not fully true or in fruition or whathaveyou yet because I actually *do* now plan on reattending an institution of expensive education) Today I found an instance where the idea of Halloween and all of our little traditions around it gave me the same quiet awe that Christmas does. Christmas, I think, has always been the only holiday I take seriously. Maybe it’s all these years of receiving gifts. And that it was the only night in the year (Christmas Eve, that is) we’d have a fire in the fireplace. And Dad would read T’was the Night Before Christmas. The family for dinner; all the things Christmas would be in a very generalized book about American life. But this thing with Halloween, and just that so many of us for absolutely no apparent pressing reason at all adhere to these nonsensical traditions - scooping pumpkin glop out and replacing it with a candle, ritual begging, costume, encouraging tooth decay among young children - I realize there *must* be some bigger reason we’re still willing to do it. Because we do still feel connected to the harvest (of sugar and corn syrup)? Because it is still a good idea to designate a night on which all of our demons (internal or not) get their chance to visit the playground? Yes. Light on, yes.
We’re going to our party this year as Margot and Richie Tenenbaum, but now I think I’m glad that party’s not on Halloween. I’m also going to need a chance to let the Trickster in and use this vessel to move about in the night. Maybe he just wants to hide and watch. But maybe he wants to restore some of the respect he’s lost in this age of electric lighting and modern science with some good old fashioned trickery.
Welcome, Trickster.

As ever,

T