LETTERS

by David Eide

The writer could only go so far before the silence forced him back into some true nature, even, some destiny. Was there cause for celebration in this? Did the earth celebrate when men and women returned to their own natures in the middle of oppressive silence? Perhaps. There were always the symptoms, in some moment, looking obliquely out a window of a moving bus and seeing a fleeting gesture in a sign across the street; a part of themselves they would re-make later on. Later, when the terrible smell of silence and hate dissipated into the summer air. When they no longer looked at the naked thoughts of those sitting on the bus with them, restlessly staring ahead with murder or conquest on their minds.

The writer marked it down as a cause for celebration when the American mind began to quicken itself and resist the many forms swirling around the empty air.

The writer felt he walked through hell. He attempted to sing. The gargoyles lined along the top of the huge department store listened.

He sang, 'In hell everything is a mirror shined up To sharpen the image of those slowly passing by...'

He always returned to his little rooms to write and think. On one wall he wrote, in pencil, a list of things he learned and when he learned anything new he wrote it carefully, then felt a burst of energy as though he was the most productive person that day and slept a marvelous sleep. The list read:


Expectation and disillusionment go hand in hand
The female imagination moves the body
Seek truth whatever the consequences
Never listen to the opinion of others unless they can prove
      some generosity of spirit
Obsessions are calls from singular points in the deeper architecture
      that can be termed fabled if you reach them with arduous effort
The writer is imbued with vanity
There is nothing greater than the growth of the soul however
      problematical it can get
The intellect is a guide
No one should fear practical problems
Sometimes it's necessary to enlarge oneself to get in the whole
       picture. 
The struggle in a man is between his heroic self and his dwarf
One respects the heroic gesture in any endeavor. Learn from
       small gestures and honor large ones.
Trust memory and keep a sense of humor

David Eide
August 7, 1999
Back to Jobs page
Back to Letters
Back to Laughing Sun
Back to Oasis