but they're all addressed to me...

Somebody once told me to never underestimate the power of a well written letter. Or maybe I read that in a book some time ago... or perhaps those were just some lines spoken in a film I saw once; I can't remember. But someone, fictional or not, once said to never underestimate the power of a well written letter. And they were right. I find myself tonight, like I have on so many similar evenings, looking through a box full of letters. These are letters that someone, in a seemingly past life, once wrote to me. They are, in fact, love letters. I have a box full of love letters. And every evening like this begins and ends the same. I fall, or rather dive, head first into this 'other world,' a universe seemingly all its own, shaped by memory, colored in a past, and punctuated with unwavering, all consuming, unconditionally beautiful love. For those few hours I am reminded of what appears to have been, as I said before, another life... another time, but not so totally another me. I am reminded that this hopeless romantic should be rather hopeful, as once upon a time true love existed, and will undoubtedly exist again. (please forgive the sap...I'm having a moment)

I've been leafing through these old pages, somewhat crinkled and worn, with an all too familiar handwriting, thinking that the love letters of great men I always admired and felt drawn to, actually hold no candle to the ones in my possession. These letters embrace the kind of romanticism I've bought into my entire life. I always imagined that Austen and Bronte, even Cummings wrote of love in more brilliant ways than anyone I knew ever could but yet, here it is... the proof. Proof that the love I thought I had only conjured up in some dreamlike whimsical alternate reality actually exists... or existed. Someone I knew years ago had the incredible capacity not only for love, but for putting pen to paper and shaping the English language so masterfully and tenderly that even now, years later, I am brought to tears by the notions of romance, admiration, appreciation, and love. It is as if these letters are not even addressed to me, but I am glimpsing into the precious correspondence of a man to his beloved- neither of whom I ever knew. As if these letters could have in fact lived in the time of Austen or Bronte... what a thought.

And I got to thinking about the power of words- which I have firmly put to question especially over the past year. Have words lost their power? Or have we lost our ability to coherently express all that we think and feel? I read these words and am reminded of a love so pure and innocent and unconditional... despite frustration and mess and complication. I read words like this, and find they're far better than anything Beethoven or Lord Byron wrote to their beloveds... because someone, somewhere, years ago, wrote them to me:

My life would be a far cry from what it is now if you were not with me now, if you'd not been there for me then, if you'd not been around for all this time. I thank you, from the bottom of all that is good within me, from the bottom of my cold heart, from the very center of everything I've ever had, for everything you've given me, for all the opportunities and chances and graces and forgiveness and love and hands to hold and shoulders to lay my head on and cheeks to touch and lips to kiss and eyes to see you seeing me, too. I can't imagine ever saying this to anyone else, ever feeling this about anyone else, ever giving this much to anything else. You are the reason I can do what I do, and all before this was fallacy.

..........So here's to hoping that even more years from now I'll be leafing through yet another box full of letters, once again reminding myself that Mr. Darcy does in fact exist in this reality, that he has the capacity for love, and that I am, in fact, lovable. Here's to becoming a more hopeful romantic. Here's to unconditional love, ridiculous romance, and the power of a well written letter.

Valentine

There really was a Valentine.
A priest.
3rd Century Rome.
He was Valentine.

Emperor Claudius II believed that men without wives and families made better soldiers. Thus, he outlawed marriage in attempts of improving his soldier crop. But cue Valentine. He continued marrying couples in secret, risking his life for love.

And so begins the historic stories and legends of Valentine's Day.

3rd Century Rome...now that was romance. Somewhere along the way this story got so distorted and diluted. We've actually come to believe that Valentine's Day, this celebration of one beautiful martyr from nearly a past existence, should be manifested in no other way than via Hallmark Cards and heart shaped chocolates. Somewhere along the way we came to believe that there should be this one day, filled with certain hopes and expectations, specific words and acts of romances. And we keep buying into the idea... year after year. We continue celebrating a day that has become saturated in ridiculousness...in commercial plots ultimately set on turning a profit.

And maybe we've just gotten all together consumed by it all. We've gotten lost in a world that teaches us to value material possessions and grand gestures. Maybe we keep buying cards and bouquets of flowers because we've forgotten how to actually say what we mean...what we feel. Because love- it's the most powerful, surprising, messy expression of emotion there is. It lacks all rationale and practicality. It's purely emotional. If only we could say what we really feel... if we could return to the classic romanticism of real love letters and pure acts of affection. If we could return to the authenticity of Valentine...acting based upon emotion, rather than what a large corporation or mass society dictates.

The truth is, I love Valentine's Day. Or rather, I love the idea of Valentine's Day. And I just hate how it's come to be presented and celebrated.

But what can you do...

......
my thoughts go out to you, my immortal beloved.
I can live only wholly with you or not at all.
Be calm my life, my all.
Only by calm consideration of our existence...
can we achieve our purpose to live together.
Oh,continue to love me.
Never misjudge the most faithful heart of your beloved.

Ever thine.
Ever mine.
Ever ours.

-Beethoven

breakfast for dinner

Angela Chase used to say that walking into someone else's house for the first time is like entering another country. And I think she's right. Someone else's house has its own language, customs, rituals, smells... And if you think about it, a house is also, in this case, a home. And a home perhaps is in fact someones sanctuary. How strange in a way to enter into another's sanctuary whether by invitation or mere happenstance. Do we then become tourists? Travelers? Walking into someone else's house is like stepping into an open portal into an entire universe...the intimate, private, vulnerable world that's unique of them and only them.

I suppose I should clarify that Angela Chase is in fact a fictional character from My So-Called Life... which is probably one of the best, yet underrated, and too soon to be canceled 90's television shows of all time. Angela Chase had never been to another country but her sense of entering into someone else's house was spot on.

And this idea transforms particularly when finding yourself alone in someone else's house... it's as if the house takes on a life and a personality of its own. The house now feels different, regardless of how many times you've sat on that very couch or danced in that living room or eaten pancakes at the kitchen table... void of its owner the house becomes something new, yet undoubtedly devoted to the keeper of the sanctuary. And you are no longer a tourist or a traveler or a mere visitor... you become a sort of surrogate. Just as you're asked to take care of the house, the house takes care of you. And, man, I don't mean for that to sound so cheesy, but I think it's like the ideas of space in Laban Movement Analysis. Now, forgive me as I nerd out for a moment...

Motion is essentially connected to the environment; we consider spatial pathways and patterns. Whether consciously or not, we take the spaces in which we exist and live and move through on a daily basis into account as we move and function in, through, around (etc) them... Architecture is, among other factors, based around the consideration of bodies moving through that space performing whatever practice or function intended. And thus, the space either facilitates or inhibits certain activities, motions, and senses of moving/being. I wonder how this house puts its impression on the bodies which enter and exist here? I wonder in turn, how those bodies impress upon the space?

Walking into someone's house for the first time is like entering a foreign country. Staying in someone's house for an extended period of time is like attempting to make that foreign place feel like home... yet no home you've ever really known. And I wonder if it's completely impossible? Or will your own private universe begin to invade that of this new space over time? Thus creating something new?

Or maybe I'm just a bit loopy from an outside filled with snow covered trees and over caffeinated, head phone wearing tunnel visioned east coasters... and this house that should feel like a quiet peace, feels empty and lonely and strange.

But then again, I haven't eaten breakfast alone in this house. Breakfast can be incredibly telling. Breakfast in a house holds power. Until then...

a first dream called ocean

42

here's to opening and upward, to leaf and to sap
and to your (in my arms flowering so new)
self whose eyes smell of the sound of rain

and here's to silent certainly mountains, and to
a disappearing poet of always, snow
and to morning; and to morning's beautiful friend
twilight (and a first dream called ocean) and

let must or if be damned with whomever's afraid
down with ought with because with every brain
which thinks it thinks, nor dares to feel (but up
with joy; and up with laughing and drunkenness)

here's to one undiscoverable guess
of whose mad skills each world of blood is made
(whose fatal songs are moving in the moon

- e.e. cummings
...........................

Well kids, I'm officially moving to Hawaii! May 26th I'll be taking that 17 hour flight over to the Pacific side of things to spend a glorious seven months (if not longer) living on Oahu. Kind of amazing actually... thrilling and terrifying and utterly fantastic. It's 2010 after all, right? More to come...