Not Burned

Dearest Rachel –

In her one woman show The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe, one of the many characters that Lily Tomlin plays is a teenage punk (which is a reference to the subculture she’s a part of; it’s not a descriptor as such, but I won’t deny that the girl has an extremely obnoxious attitude) who goes by the name of Agnus Angst. She’s just recently run away from home – and her parents (or her grandparents?) are named Lud and Marie, which Lily has stated in other routines are based off of her own parents, so take from that what you will – is doing a performance art thing about how much she hates everybody on this ‘speck’ that she refers to planet earth being.

She goes on about being inspired from a bit out of (of all people, given her apparent political bent) G. Gordon Liddy’s autobiography, in which, to toughen himself up, he would hold his hand over a candle flame for an extended period of time. “The trick,” he supposedly wrote about it, “is not to mind it.” Her point is that she needs feels the need to do so, because life and the world sucks so much that she has to learn how “not to mind it” in order to survive. The end of her character bit has her grasping her burned hand in pain, and murmuring through clenched teeth, “I mind it.” Guess she’s in for a few more sections over that candle flame.

You know, honey, I have often assumed that your departure was going to send me around the bend. Between the shock and suddenness of it all in the first place, compounded by the years of trying to deal with the grief and loneliness, I honestly expected to go mad from it; these letters were, in some small part, an attempt to document what I fully expected to be my slow decline for those after me to piece together like a puzzle afterwards – or, more hopefully, in progress, a cry asking for the help I needed before that actually happened. You can decide for yourself as to whether that rescue transpired, but I find myself comforted when I come across passages like this, and realize that there are people on either side of me, whether G. Gordon Liddy or Lily Tomlin or the countless people like Agnus, who read their stuff and think “hey, this is an idea I should try,” and I realize that I’m nowhere near – and never will be even close to – the level of crazy that some people are at.

Granted, this probably means I can write off any possibility of a truly meaningful career in the arts; on the other hand, if this is what’s involved in getting there, I’m probably better off for that.

As I said yesterday, I wasn’t looking forward to what I would have to face today, but felt like I would have to take a page out of Agnus’ own book – or would that be Liddy’s? – and just try to “not mind it.” The question was, how much was I going to have to not mind? What were “the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,” to borrow from an understandably more famous work, that I would have to deal, and how many would there be?

As it turned out, neither situation was as bad as I feared it would be. The first was basically a case of receiving an answer that I’d been expecting for some time – although in its absence, I had begun to convince myself of a possibility that wasn’t. The lack of a “no” up until now had suggested that “yes” might not be entirely out of the question, when in reality, I should have known so much better. At the risk of sounding like I’m talking about sour grapes, it’s better to know and not have the question hanging over either of us. That way, the two of us can go back to being friends, rather than having any tension about the possibility of more than that dangling in the air around us. Now, we just have to deal with our schedules, as well as that of the rest of those in our circle.

As for the business meeting – and I should know this, but it may still be a vestige of my work life – first of all, they don’t shoot messengers, and secondly, what deficit or fallback we might be dealing with this year is trifling in comparison to past activity. We have grown so much that this is but a minor setback – and indeed, part of it may be rooted in activity that needs to be reclassified, anyway. The truth, as negative as it might look in my eyes, sets one free.

And that’s basically it. In either case, there was no acrimony, nothing to fear – but until I was in the situation itself, I didn’t necessarily know that. I didn’t have to mind it – my hand wasn’t held to the candle flame – because the others involved didn’t mind it to such an extent. Which may well be the real trick to life, after all; everyone has to agree not to mind it, and nobody winds up getting burned.

Having managed to get through yesterday evening, though, honey, I’d still appreciate your eye on me, and a wish for luck. I never know what might be around the bend – maybe even myself – so I’m pretty sure I’ll need it.