Postcards to a past

 Peggy,     Not much to say tonight.       Staying awake all night, high on LSD (with Mike), walking from his house to yours, basically being calmly, warmly, welcomed. I so looked forward to being around you.

   Peggy,    I don't want to look in the mirror tonight but not feeling so good about life. The ache is not knowing how your life was lived. You put so much live into living during the short time I knew you. I did not. Tonight is one of those: St. Anthony please come around, someone is lost and can't be found nights. How sad they are.  And why you and not her?

   Peggy,     Beatles "white album" a lot lately. Remembering the first time from back in the day. After camping with John, Rod, someone else I can't remember, talking with people we met about the white album, best way to listen to it, put the speakers on either side of your head.     For some reason it made me think of you. That led me to "Ain't no sunshine when she's gone", Bill Withers. When we wrote to each other that song was constantly in my heart, thinking of you. "She" was you.     For me, the relationship would have been sex, I'm afraid. Maybe not. You were way beyond that, and not. I want to think I was the same. The letters AND sex.

   Peggy,    I wonder. Not anymore. I hope you found that one, just one.          It's now too late for me.     Yet I still wonder how it would be. Pain now though.     I cry sometimes because I lost you, Kris.     Pain now though.     "I need a little place in the sun...everybody's got somebody..."  ----- Patty Griffin     How can fifty-year-old letters be such a comfort?

   Peggy,     Maybe I was capable of a relationship when we wrote to each other, but fifty years later I don't think I am. I guess that is why the letters have had such an impact again. Dreams.      Man I wish we could talk to each other. You could help.

 Peggy,     "Man is meant for happiness and his happiness is in him, in the satisfaction of the daily needs of his existence."         "...in the satisfaction of the daily needs of his existence..."       Your letters to me were my daily, well not daily, needs. My happiness for a short while. I think, I hope, my replies were my satisfaction.  

  Peggy,    "When at night, when we’re apart Can sorrow break your tender heart?" For the time you were away, yes. A year or so later, after meeting Kris, and for many immature years following, yes. "I love you, darling, yes I do Sleep is sweet when I think of you..." Again, for many immature "I love you" dreams after her...yes. Sleep was only sweet when I dreamed of her. And as always, your letters made the sorrow sweet.

   Peggy,    It has been so long. When you came back, seeing who I was in person probably changed your mind about our friendship or something I did changed your mind about who I was. My writing was me, but my weakness and immaturity came out when I was around people (you). My writing was my base. Being around each other, what you saw was not what you wanted. Over the years, the writing was more and more my reflection. More and more me not afraid of showing it to some. You were the start of that process.

Peggy,    Reading the proverbs:  Yes, my memory definitely agree, you were pleasantness and peace. As for me, even in laughter, the heart is sorrowful, yes, always, though I can't say I have ever laughed much. I am usually quiet, I don't think you knew that, but a few years ago, I suddenly started talking too much. That has changed back to silence recently.    I will probably write this again and again: I hope you are alive and well.  

   Peggy,     I don't have a picture of you. None of us ever took pictures. After high school, after starting work at Craig, I was living with friends, then Bob Maynard, he did quite a bit. 

 Peggy,    I don't think I would have been such a great friend to you, well, stupid to say as I was not when you returned, but then you distanced yourself from me also.     I am a much better friend as a long distance letter writer.      And I was intimidated by you, admired you even before you visited San Diego.  

   Peggy,     Not much to say today. I have turned into the cliche that is reminiscence in old people. Listened to some of the sound track from Woodstock, (on an NPR station out of New York) something like 52nd anniversary. It was nice.      Had just re-read your letters, so combined with my feelings about them. It was nice. Made me smile.  

   Peggy,     Ok. Read your letters again. On the MacBook, good thing since there were some typos. Cried reading the first three. Part of that is exhaustion. Part of that is, as I've said before, loneliness, emptiness, boredom.     Man I miss you! Truly! I miss the you, that you showed me in your letters. I miss the letters. I really wonder what the hell I wrote to you. I hope what I wrote was full of love and peace. And I hope my letters brought you some joy and solace.       (St. Anthony please come around, someone's lost and can't be found.) Yeah, I know better. 

 Peggy,     Continuing with the why theme.     I don't meet a lot of people. I especially don't meet people who are willing to be so honest about themselves as you were with me and, I hope, as I was with you. Man, I miss that! Just for that, it's a struggle to keep myself from reading your letters over and over again. Well, that and hoping St. Anthony will answer my prayer about returning a lost someone. Isn't that what old people do; waiting for the past to walk up to your front door and knock.     Of all the lonelinesses, in all the world, why did she have to float into mine.     Before I end. I think it was a movie, not sure though, someone was singing "Goodnight Irene". For some reason it made me think of you.  

   Peggy,     I am writing an epistolary book and the main character is writing to someone, the only love of his universe. "I" keep asking why. In one of his first "letters" I have him write, "Why am I dong this and why now?"     Writing these bits to you, I ask the same thing, why. It took a couple of days to get to the point of telling myself, "Let it go!" Nothing will come of the feelings, nothing will happen, just let it go! Of course, now writing the postcards is evidence that I did not.     So why?     Easy. Fill in the emptiness. To get you back. To get back the passion. To get you back. (like I said, Easy.)

   Peggy,      This came up as I watched "Notting Hill" again.      One of the things that sweetens the time you and I wrote to each other is Bill Wither's "Ain't No Sunshine". It was then and still is one of my favorite popular songs, one of the two or three. Every time I heard it, it was you, you were gone. Of course, I waited. Yes, I was the lonely little teenager with a massive crush. But what what sunshine when I received one of your letters. That sunshine was what came back to me this last time. Again, hit me very hard. Sunshine and your honesty.

   Peggy,      After fifty-two years.       This is not a love letter...well...     First, I want to say I'm sorry. Sorry I was such an immature seventeen-year-old. Sorry I was my usual lazy, passive self; that I didn't try when you returned; that I didn't try to talk, to help, to reach you.      I don't remember what I wrote to you, I hope I offered comfort, friendship. If I did, I should have continued. Doing nothing isn't being much of a friend.      You were important to me. Even before the time you were in San Diego. I'm not sure why.  Your strength, I think, was part of it, me not having much. And being as young as I was, fucking was part of it. From your letters, it was your intelligence, your insight, your pain (I am attracted to those in pain, which, I guess is most women).     I am not completely sure why they have affected me so much after readi...