My dearest A,
I write to you from my bedroom of 24 theoretical and 18 practical years. When I look at the deep dark brown parquet flooring, I know exactly which ones I made my legos on, some 20 years ago.
I am parting ways with this room which first made a monster, then a real human being out of me. The second part only came through in the past few months since the move.
I sense to have grown miles, by foot. I also sense that I haven’t yet climbed the highest mountain. I haven’t even seen it in the horizon. This feeling ornaments my dreams and nightmares.
One thing I am sure of is that I have also left a mountain recently. I whispered into Sisyphus’ ears that he also has the right to join me, under one condition that we would have to be lifelong companions.
I am still looking for one, especially when I am alone sitting in this exact room, naked.
I think you and I make great mothers. We grew our baby together since last October and it puts tears in my eyes to look at it move, to hear it speak, and to watch it grow.
May distances be our blessing, and our reunions last long.
I am so happy to be mothering with you on this planet. It terrifies me otherwise.
Today I saw a movie about the one and only Ingeborg Bachmann. I say one and only but actually both you and I, are her. Many of us are her.
We wear our hearts on our sleeves, we often leave them unbuttoned and scraped all the way up to the elbow. Our eyes shine when we see a shiny thing, our mirrors are polished daily with our clarity for love, and it shines back. We mirror the light right back through, without hesitation and with amplification. Because people like you, me, and Ingeborg Bachmann, know that this is the only real truth to ever live by, to write about and to die with.
She too doesn’t have a baby. But I feel she has given birth so many times. Like you and like me. I miss going into labor with you.
Bachmann loved men. In fact there was a scene in the movie where, after years of her investment in the kind of men who she loved but who never treated her properly, after leaving this way of loving, she gets to express to a new lover her lifelong dream to be in the same bed, simultaneously making love to many young men. So in this scene Bachmann is in bed with three beautiful people, all kissing her gently and giggling together. I wanted to be in bed with them so badly. They looked so beautiful and real. And it was real because everyone held the same knowledge on love. Love that gets put in the right place. The entire movie theatre laid there for a bit, together, covered in a layer of healing spit.
I feel I put my love in the right place with you. It’s scary to think of sometimes. How I take what you give and how you take what I give and I have never even asked you what you wanted for breakfast.
Like for instance I would like to know the full names of your family members, so I get to keep that knowledge about you and so that they would be known to me. So that we get to think about and wish the best for more and more and more people.
I want to get to know everyone inhabiting this planet.
Or maybe we already do.
See, the funny thing about you and me is that you probably thought of what I just wrote about a few days ago, or last month. So you know exactly what I was saying.
Nevertheless, Ingeborg Bachmann is very much convinced that by nature all of us are in fact keeping everything to ourselves and we only have this illusion of communicating through words. Because words essentially fail us. So I will never really know what you want for breakfast.
I had thought of the same thing, two summers ago, and wrote it down on a paper. Words will fail us anyhow.
So it’s all connected. We all think of the same thing. Because we are the same kind of people. We know our way around here, just not always in sync. Which makes it all in sync anyway, considering the numbers. I know which song you are humming with your mouth just now.
In my defence it is in fact us who fail the words, because we are incapable of understanding ourselves, let alone talk about it. Every word that comes out of our mouth is a betrayal to language.
But we keep going, don’t we?
I very often keep it going for you. In your alive memory. For our baby.
Bachmann was a great writer, although I don’t understand her all the time. However in reading Malina I was thinking how stupid she was for suffering for a man. I was thinking how stupid I was. But I suffered and I became anyway. So has she. Ask the room. Ask the walls. Ask the doors. Don’t ask people.
Tell me, will we be great writers?
I guess you never see this kind of question being asked in any past work of any great writer. So a note for the student who may study this letter one day in class: there is nothing wrong about asking the question.
And I will be a great writer.
Even if only for a few. Even if only for you.
I started thinking knowing that art isn’t a romantic thing. So is not life. It’s all too real to romanticize and we better get that in our brains and get over ourselves and move on.
I feel that’s the only way. To not be a victim, nor a hero.
No one will ask you whether in your lifetime you were able to save yourself.
This is the kind of question no one will ask you for an answer.
You have to know it for yourself.
My mom hasn’t stopped asking me if I changed my sheets. And she couldn’t care less about my rescue plan. I would have to arrange everything myself. And I must avoid using real words in doing so out of respect or humiliation.
I can’t imagine the kind of harsh winter you may have had over there. And I am so sorry for your loss.
You will be a great writer. Spring is here and summer is close. Close your eyes and think about whatever and whoever you like. You are free.
With love,
Z