Unfinished Thoughts

Dearest Rachel –

Most of the time, when I’m writing you, I find that I need to do so all at one sitting. Which makes sense; if I’m writing you every day, I need to have a certain amount of time set aside every day to do so, so why not finish the job during that time? Besides, certain thoughts absolutely need to be written down immediately, lest they escape me, such as my dreams. You’ve probably noticed that I’ve occasionally acknowledged both having embellished some of those dreams while admitting that I can’t necessarily distinguish between what I actually dreamed and the embellishing touches I put on it while writing you about it, because I can’t write fast enough to keep up with the original story as it fades from my mind. I think I may have rationalized it at the time as both coming from the same fount of imagination, and therefore not worrying too much about it, but still, it is the sort of thing that needed to be put down all at once, for obvious reasons.

It’s not quite so cut-and-dried in other cases. Sometimes, I can’t quite assemble a proper frame for my thoughts in the amount of time I’ve allotted for myself – for example, Saturday mornings require me to be up and out the door much earlier than during the week, and I can only get something together for you if I’m up ridiculously early. Sometimes, other events of the day interrupt my train of thought; once Daniel is awake, I usually feel the need to direct more attention to being with him (if not necessarily communicating with him) than I can spare to think of what to add to my letter to you. And other days, there just isn’t that much unique going on to tell you about (one day does seem much like another, honey; even more so when it’s just me and my thoughts, rather than adding those of someone by my side), and I don’t necessarily have any interesting philosophical points to discuss with you in lieu of relating the events of the day at what I consider to be sufficient length (or if I do, I find myself strapped for the ability to flesh in an outline of those thoughts).

As you might guess, there are days when I find myself surprised that I’ve managed to keep this up for so long because of all these issues.

Then again, there are days when I’m at the ‘office’ when, with nothing else pressing on me, I find myself coming up with topic after topic, but nothing completely coherent, or maybe I just want to keep these thoughts in reserve for another time when I’m dealing with writer’s block. The thing is, honey, as much as I would wish it otherwise, writing you is vastly different from holding a conversation with you. Those latter came naturally; words, sentences and paragraphs flowing from each of us so as to fill a page like this in what might seem like no time, if they were ever to have been transcribed. To be sure, there were also long periods of companionable silence, too, but still, the words that passed between us were sufficiently many and varied. Here, there is only my voice, calling out to the void; sometimes it seems strange, other times almost futile. Add to that the fact that I feel the need to stick to a single topic (or somehow organize my random thoughts under a particular umbrella topic) and you can see how much more difficult it is to write these things to you than it would be to just talk with you about this or that.

As a result, there are a number of things that I’ve started to say that I’ve left unfinished – or at least, unpublished. Some of them, of course, are simply things that I expected to happen that didn’t – I still have my research on the towns along the Rhine that I never got the chance to visit, thanks to catching Covid and winding up in quarantine. Maybe someday, when I persuade the gang to join me (and they can get their individual schedules aligned), I’ll be able to release that research into the wild, albeit updated for any new information that may come from the time having passed and our interests being different than just my own would have been.

Others are from moments of inspiration where I put up a framework, got my train of thought rolling – only for me to find myself in the station, looking down the tracks as it’s pulled away without me, and I can’t determine when the next one will arrive to pick me up – or if I should just follow the tracks on my own, running the risk that I’ll get run over by whatever new thoughts pass by on them as I do. Even if I do manage to flesh out a previously framed idea, it’s noticeable to me where the disconnect is between starting out and touching up, as if a wall had been painted with two different shades of semi-gloss when the first can ran out – resulting in my unwillingness to let anyone into the room to see the mess I’ve made of it.

And then there are others that I’ve actually managed to complete, but realize they aren’t meant for universal consumption. Some of them go into detail about you and me – and while I know some people for whom “who wants to hear about that?” is a rhetorical question, I’m not sure that most people who might read over our shoulders would agree with them. Others, once I’ve written them up, feel more like I’m arguing with someone else who might read these letters, and that’s beyond bad form.

So yeah, there are a lot of drafts sitting out there, waiting for me to do something with them. Ironically, this isn’t one of them; it’s taken a little more than an hour to do it, but I’m giving this to you all in one sitting, with minimal edits for spelling. It’s not going to be counted among the great works of literature (and an observation about how what I write to you is subject to Sturgeon’s Law is one of those concepts that I want to get on with, one of these days), but it’s relatively seamless, wouldn’t you say?

Anyway, I need to get on with the rest of my day; especially since I’m meeting up with Lars, after which, Daniel and I will be having dinner with the folks. Take care of yourself, honey; keep an eye on me, and wish me luck. I’m going to need it.