the end of the beginning

hi mike,

this is preemptive, since you even hinted in our brief conversation today that you've got a letter on the way . . . but I'm about to sell my motorcycle, and I wanted to share some of the pictures of it with you. it is bizarre, and almost uncomfortable to feel so emotionally attached to an old piece of metal. but i have literally bled into this machine. I never expected or intended to love this so much - I just wanted a motorcycle. it is so much more.

here are the lessons I've absorbed so far . . .

1) brute force will not get you nearly as far as intelligence
2) if you are trying and trying and trying and it just isn't working - STOP TRYING! step back, take in all of the elements, because you are probably missing something that will make what you're attempting easy
3) if you attach things just enough so they stay put, they will fall off when the bike (life) starts to vibrate excessively as it inevitably will. instead, when you put something in its place pull, yank, test, push and strengthen its hold until you are fully assured that it will stay.

ok, now I have to figure out how to attach pictures . . . oh, that was easy.

I'm sorry I won't be back east for the holidays as usual. all my travels this year have been tough on my body and my bank account . . . my birthday party is february 10th, come. bring celine.

love,
anne.

reverse curse

Dear Mike,

Hello dear, sorry it's been such a lag since your last letter. Life has this way of zipping past me sometimes without my noticing days, weeks, years. Anyway here we are. It's Monday again and my favorite kind of day outside: brilliantly clear sky with a biting atmosphere. I wonder how long we'll have with days like this . . . seems like everywhere the air is growing increasingly warm.

Gen X has two curses: the I-Don't-Know-What-To-Do curse and its reverse: Overstimulation, overaction, unending overwhelm. From the moment I wake up, until the moment I fall asleep I am working on one project or another: music, painting, my motorcycle, community, my relationship, my living space, my body, my mind, yerm ahm, my ever-evolving job. I don't understand how people have time to watch television - I remember it (the tv) being on for hours and hours into the late night at my house when I was in middle school and high school. I wouldn't have time for ten minutes of it as my life is now. But I think in this case the curse is its reverse and its reverse is its curse. Follow?

In general, what I'm trying to say, without having said it yet at all if you'll forgive me, is that this "what am I going to do?" crap is . . . crap. We're already always doing something. It's more a matter of are we pleased with what we're doing? Or are we going to do something else instead? This is what you're saying I think: overstimulation of opportunities leads to a peculiar sort of paralysis.

And yet, I suspect that many of us who struggle with What To Be When We Grow Up, are already living or have already lived five or six lives when measured by output (maybe not so much by wisdom) . . .

Mike, you've produced three albums and you're still a shadow under thirty. Among my similarly-aged close friends I can count: probably two dozen published books/stories/poems, 2-3 dozen full length albums, national tours, 3 lawyers, 2 almost-PsyD's, 2 almost-PhD's, maybe a half dozen Master's degrees, an internationally recognized radio documentary, 2 full length films, a Turkmen Language Learning Guide, symphonies, plays, and the list goes on . . . .

I think it's a misnomer to say we're going to be someTHING when we grow up. We are many things - constantly reshaping, shifting. We're polymaths in training - learning a hundred trades at once. So I'd suggest that if you get to the end of your day and "don't know what to do" then do nothing. Maybe your Nothing Doing is really an exploration of the negative space around your 9-5.

I'm hedging my bets on living a long life (mostly because I wouldn't mind living a short one, and I suspect that fate has a cruel sense of irony.) Based on the thousands of things that I like to do, by the time I am 90 I anticipate being a: peaceful, master motorcycle repairwoman and mother with impeccable rhythm, absolute pitch and a fair endowment to leave for a most unlikely cause - i.e. a statue garden honoring underrated/unknown legends such as Victoria Williams and Naeem Inayatullah. In the meantime I don't know much about much, but I'm very very busy. And sometimes even happy thanks to this.

As parting words, I want you to read this poem: it is a translation of an Urdu poem from 1750 . . . my dear friend Sonal Bhatia (a brilliant poet) translated it between classes at law school, where she is also starting her own non-profit organization to protect the rights of domestic violence survivors.

Untitled (or maybe "Maya")

Desire is such a human disaster

that it breaks the fast

by destroying the existence of hunger--

I am such a human; my soul drowned

like the ant dropped in a well

in this tsunami of desire

for you;

save me, Beloved, from my indignity,

cover my eyes in a veil

of tears.

--Sonal Bhatia

Much love, and don't worry we'll talk more about God. maybe with a jug of wine and a phone call . . . and some blank paper taped to the walls.

Anne.