Extract from 'ghosts and marionettes'
This is an extract from a series of essays on memory captured from random interviews, stories and between-the-lines...
Dear A,
So many letters later, so many years later.. Where are you? How are you?
I am here! I have been here all along! This week, I have been living in London for 25 years. And not until now have I found you. But I can’t see you, I can’t make myself known. I will remain a ghost and a marionette. Only, this time, I know you were not a dream, a stage set that was taken down at the end. How weird and how peculiar, I know you may not even remember me, know me, probably not..
‘It’s for the best’. ‘Let sleeping dogs lie’. That’s what they say, isn’t it?
So I have started, my first letter to you in 25 years. I was writing by hand then. I used to love sharpening the pencil, or using a good ink pen. Sometimes I think I must have made several drafts, before the final, brilliant letter started to emerge. Then I polished it, checked and double-checked. It had to be right, every word, and sentence, even the in-between-the-lines. Isn’t that the most important part of a letter anyway?!
I remember feeling totally exhausted afterwards. I was writing in a foreign language (a language I came to love thanks to you and our letters) and my dilemma was to make my life, through my letters, sound and seem interesting enough for you to continue to read, and, of course, to continue to write back. I waited for the reply and it always came. It always came on a day when I had a feeling it would come. I could hear you writing, I could hear your mind as you were sitting there, somewhere far away and alien, I really could. Do you know that?
In my room, I had yellow wallpaper. I used to wear a yellow velour jump suit. I always sat by the window, looking out through the dense vegetation of the large oak tree looming outside. There I sat, thinking of what to say in my next letter to you, staring ahead after having read your letter. All that news you sent me. I could see you running around, where you lived, nearby. I could imagine you working and preparing for your performances. I could hear you practice and play. I could feel you breathing, as I lay in my bed at night. I could feel you near me, sometimes, this feeling was so strong that I was sure you felt it too. When I looked in the mirror, I could see you.
Did we develop sister souls, brother souls? Maybe it was just me, but how come this feeling is back again? Now that I have found you, I don’t know what to do. How to feel, how to take the news, all of this has been overwhelming. I must write to tell you, that this letter will not be sent, but I will tell you anyway, as I hope you can hear me, I suspect you can. If I think hard enough, you will come across something on your travels through the seaside town where I think you live. You will see something, something vague that you can’t quite put your finger on. It will tickle your mind, your tired mind, by now. It will be me saying hello, nudging you, ‘why did it take so long’.
Back then; after I had received your letters, my walk to school, to the bus, was easy. I felt taller, stronger and closer, again, to you. I danced my way through the day. I made a ghost out of you already then, see. I knew I wasn’t ready to be with you, I was too scared, young, naïve, no, I wasn’t naïve. But I was afraid of becoming hurt and more afraid of becoming disappointed in this dream, this huge imagined fantasy I had created. It was special, too special to break. How can I ever say it wasn’t? It still is, which is why I was so shocked at my own reaction, when I sat here getting closer and closer to information about you. Like a sleuth and then I almost didn’t want to know. But how could I not look, I had made it this far, my journey of 25 years of every now and again turning away tasks and the constant activity routine that my life has become, just to see, just in case, you had posted a message somewhere out there. Nothing, until, suddenly, I started adding the obvious together, and I guess, like always with you, I just knew. I stopped and froze at the fact that you are in this country, have probably been for some years. I envisaged you far and away from any western shores. My imagined you had become someone, someone else. And here you are, on the coast, near my beloved birds.
When I found out, I wanted to drive there, straight away. I wanted to see you, talk to you and just meet you. Then my sensible side took over and I started doubting my behaviour. This impulsive behaviour of ‘having to get there fast’, by the way, had no planning attached to it. I was not in control of that, amazingly.
But I then decided to let the sleeping dog lie. What if he bites, what if he is rabid? You gave me the independence, strength and hunger for adventure. You also, inevitably, gave me the quiet side that comes and goes. The thinking. The incompetence to love others like I loved the ghost of you. The failure to build a life as I struggled through the jungle of relationships mixed with unfinished business. You gave me all this and more. You gave me the ability to believe that dreaming is ok, but I actually never believed you, although I am still living in the land above the clouds. Do you remember that poem I wrote?
I have been building strength and stamina for body and soul ever since your last letter. I remember it well. It was angry and disappointed. They say, never go to bed after an argument. I guess we did that, and you were right, honesty is the key to success.
If I don’t get to meet you again. Goodbye dear A. I hope life has treated you well. I am happy here, where I am today. But I think you should know that I sometimes think of you in that in-between-space I so enjoy.
All my love, ADx"
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