Correspondence 11/11/06: going the distance

Dearest Po,

I have this sneaking suspicion I missed your call on Thursday (you:Friday). I’m fairly positive we did come to the conclusion that Thursday Night Literature Forum would indeed be on Thursday again, for me, although I’m not sure when the calls were meant to take place. In any case I should explain why I was not hanging out with Carlo Rossi waiting for your call (a cherished and rare thing from, what the world time clock calculates to be about 9,000 miles away) most of the night - I’d just received Slate back from whichever midwestern locale she’d been at all week. And I haven’t had her around that much the past few months. We’ve even missed two trivia nights in a row. In any case my apologies. I hope you’ll phone with the same faith this coming week - if you’re available - as you hopefully had this week.
Now on to business. This little story of yours. I *do* in fact, remember its basic outline, now that we’ve bumped into each other again, and I remember all of the questions I had for you which you’ve still managed to skirt your way around answering.
I’m not sure that you’ve got the time or resources to do it, but my first instinct is to pile on yet another assignment to your 70-hour work weeks and weekly Antarctic writing group, and that is to do one of two things:

a) write a letter to your young self. warn yourself not to jump off the swing in fourth grade or not to dump your sixth grade boyfriend for stealing your ice cream or yes, apply for the internship in Vegas, or just something more general like “hey you, stop worrying so much, you’re going to make it to at least your mid twenties, so appreciate all of these days and everything in them. because you’re going to want to write about all of it someday.” Something like that. Have a little talk with the younger, naive Popo.

or

b) go back and peruse letters you’ve received and written. Think about what you know now about what was discussed then. Would you have talked in a different way if you knew...? Would you have foregone parts of the conversation all together? Would you be *able* to be the same person, if you knew all the secrets already?

This is *not* to ward you off of writing the time-traveling change the history story. I see two immediate benefits, and I imagine there are many more to be enjoyed if you come by them. First, you’ll simply get in touch with your own past by specifically devoting time to commiserating with it. You might get to explore how this time thing works... is it working? (all those physics questions, y’know? time is the fourth dimension, so are all these dimensions already out there, so can you travel between them, and would that mean that everything’s already happened and yet to happen and nothing can actually be changed, and on, and on, and on). And, since I suspect parts of your story to be directly related to your own personal history, you might find some things there, too.
But also you’ll have a chance to explore conversation more. It’s the “go out to a public place and listen in on somebody else’s conversation” assignment, but you’ll have words already written down, and they will be yours, and you can see how *you* have a conversation. And in a letter, the cues for changes in topic can be obvious or hidden, and the hidden ones, I think, could be very intriguing in some of the stories of yours I’ve read. I know the ‘young adult’ crowd may not have the wholly masochistic desire for a lack of total understanding that I do, but a little bit - in inkling - could be enticing. Especially in stories which are going to deal with the supernatural.
That’s my case. Don’t be so friendly and informative to your reader. Or, maybe just leave a trail of rose petals and let them come to their warm bath on their own.
I’m looking forward to the next time I hear from you. I hope it’ll be next week.
This letter may have a part two, by the way, but the Saturday sun is calling. I hope you’ve had a great week. I hope you’re doing wonderfully. Let me know how the writing group is working, how your attitude is working, how bingo has been going. When you’re getting your pool down there.

As ever,

T