LETTERS 

When he spent time with friends he always came away dissatisfied as though, even there, one must effect a mask of some kind. He loved his friends but didn't love the suburbs. And, truthfully, his friends were all going in different directions than the writer. He was always trying to convince himself that the differences were something to celebrate. Even the conflicts were merely an off-hand remark or some feeling sensed running in the underground of relations. He knew people judged from the choices they make. As a writer it was impossible to take seriously the judgements. The choices, yes. But, never the judgements.

Then there were the times when he got up early during the work day and rode with the commuters into Oakland. He saw the black cloud hanging over the heads of commuters. He thought, at that moment, that they were either fighting the terrible cloud or partaking of it. He noticed the fat, muscular career women who possessed a kind of secret, silent arrogance. In an instant he had an insight. Jobs, money, technology, newspapers give people the most mediocre of illusions and fantasies. What do they do to truly improve the lot of people? He knew it was early in the morning and his insights tempered to that circumstance. It was the irritation he felt at giving people support and getting nothing in return. Here is the writer giving everyone the moral support they seek. He listens to them carefully as though what they say is tremendously important. Even the strangest city creature exploited the writer and nearly demanded an accounting for his unhappiness.

And when he saw all the women in the train, going off to their jobs, he saw the depth of the truly dissatisfied. Women often came to him with their problems. He demanded that they explain just exactly what they wanted. He saw that they wanted an ambiguous longing for freedom but would never demonstrate what this freedom was, exactly. And they lacked a certain irony that would recognize that their freedom would play right into the hands of the mentality that women want to change.

Women, he wanted to say to them. Don't let other people to intercede or obstruct and get your own nature working against you!

Perhaps it was unfortunate but, at a certain moment in time, the writer started to reflect on his own past. He did not really want a past. He wanted a great, grand myth. He wanted a vast and meaningful structure of which he was the chief author. He went over the tortuous ten years following his graduation. He thought about the alternating relations with his parents and family. He thought of his daughter and the places he took her to. 'They were all looking at me during that time,' the writer thought. It was not a kind thought. One aunt had even told him that. 'They're all looking at you you know. Oh yeah, they're watching you closely.' He had gone to Seattle and drank wine, one night, with his brother. The brother scolded him. The writer was in the throes of a kind of loneliness, a kind of mad instinct that projected a great deal of emotion into the family.

The worst thing he did was sell his books. He lamented each volume. He remembered where he bought each one, when he read it, the history of his emotion and thought as he read the book before he sold it to the bookman. In all his youth there was never a greater humiliation than selling his whole library until he was down to a few useless textbooks. Life is stealing my spirit, he thought. Why is it that what I most love, am most devoted to, slips unrelenting from my fingers?