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Letters with Jam






letters: 2009/2010
distillations: 2024



Catie Young –

My dear friend, I wish my words were sufficient to explain this Catie hole in my heart. I am listening to Tom Waits’ album, Blue Valentine. The song title “Red Shoes by the Drugstore” reminds me of you. The song does too, a little. I think you’ll understand if you hear the song. Regardless, I’ll sing you the closing lines of the song – “So meet me tonight by the drugstore, we’re going out tonight, wear your red shoes, red shoes …”

            Now I’m listening to “Letter Christmas Card from a Hooker in Minneapolis.” I love this man with all I have poetic inside me. My petite ballerine, danser dans vos chausseurs rouges, I feel the same way about you. I am sorry, my French is more than rusty.

            Setting: I’m in Mulligan’s drinking coffee (I brought Costa Rica for them to brew for me.), there are interesting folks all around me. People trying so hard, people not trying hard at all, no one else drooling over Tom Waits though, I’ll tell you that right now. I wish you were here to share in this little parade of humanity with me. I know you are doing it wherever you are. & between you and me, there is a girl sitting before me with cleavage so nice I want to write a poem about it. There’s no shame in appreciating the beauty in this world. There is too much ugly to pass it up. There is some really sick and sad stuff in this world. But I don’t reckon I’m going to talk about that here.

            I think about your last night in town often. The walk was so tragically perfect, knowing the whole time you’d be gone in the morning. Tom Waits has me illogically inspired to steal a car and drive to France tonight for you. It seems like a little thing but somehow I know that, while I don’t believe in spirits or angels or haunts or shadow folk, I believe in love and the power it has to tell you I am thinking about you. Often. I am a little lost without you, I fear. Your letters have illuminated the dark times, my friend.

            Sometimes I sit in my apartment just feeling out of place. In this huge world, you know? I will put on a record, interest myself in it for a bit, but if the songs are not right I feel even more like a stranger. That is why I am so grateful for Tom Waits and my small collection of classical records. Brahms, one of my favorites, has this amazing concerto for violin and violincello. I know nothing about composers but I know when one can really move me. Tchaikovsky also has this effect. I’m a sucker for the stringed instruments.  

            I hope you enjoy the cds I made for you. I am listening to the Tom Waits mix right now and I must say I captured his incredible variety while focusing on the slower, lyric-based songs I am convinced you’ll love. It is good music to have with you if you are going to be drinking a whisky. (Or coffee, for that matter. Excuse me, café.) I also included two studio albums that have occupied months of my ears. “Small Change” is just an amazing album that has a nice blend of his funnier songs (step right up; pasties & a g-string) and the songs that drew me to his music originally. (the piano has been drinking, not me; bad liver and a broken heart; invitation to the blues.) “Nighthawks at the Diner” is a genius album – recorded in a studio but made to sound like a performance at some lounge full of libations. His narratives between songs will make you feel close to him as a person. This is the first Waits album I owned. And last (and least but still great). I burned Doomtree’s “False Hopes.” I don’t know where you stand on hip hop right now but this album has been on repeat off and on for almost a year. I recommend tracks 11 and 13 if you don’t want to dive into the whole album. I am going to roll another cigarette and sit back with my coffee. Oh! observations.

            I am at this point in my life where I look back to times I NEVER experienced with some incredible amount of nostalgia. It is a strange feeling I am sure it is not unique to me. But that doesn’t affect how intense the disappointmentis when I realize a) I have never lived these “memories” and b) there is no way for me to do so. Oh this world. While my beliefs hold that after death I simply dissolve into the earth, I still like to think, What would it be like? Heaven, reincarnation, spectre-living, being a ghost, et cetera. What an interesting belief, the whole afterlife thing. What do you think about when you imagine heaven.

            Well my dear, I must get going. Have you met anyone of particular interest lately? I love hearing your stories.


                                                                        I will see you soon,

                                                                                    my lady.




                                                                                                Yours,

                                                                                                            Benjamin




Catie, my dearest friend,

The guy from Destroyer has been tugging on my ears for a while today … thank you for inspiring me to listen to them or him or whatever pronoun belongs there. I miss you, Catie. I fill my days with bicycle rides, conversation, music, reading, work and still when I get off work & I check to see what is playing at the cinema I can’t help but to wish you were posed at some barstool somewhere with an empty spot you’ve been saving for me where we could sip on Hendricks and tonics and talk in the bar to last call.

Also, Bon Iver. Holy shit. I used to blow ‘em off as just another falsettoed hipster. But Jesus H Christ. What a singer & songwriter. He makes me want to start playing guitar again. So much music, it is nice to find that which I find beautiful. And I will hold onto it; you never know when all this shit, all of us, will just cease to exist. And in your case, a longer secession.

I want to just fill this page with I miss- and I love yous but I know you can understand how big is your absence here. I see you in every smile and every empty whisky-neat glass. I want to hold you, my friend. A kiss on the cheek, even, and to fall asleep with you in my arms. It is amazing what a friendship can mean. (Just so you know, while romantically, I am not inclined, if it wasn’t with M, I would marry you and we could, I believe, live a pretty happy life together. If we’re both single at, say, thirty-five, what do you say? :)   


Maybe later.

I don’t know how

these things work

:)

_____________________________________________


I feel like I’m having an epiphany here at tenth street though I’m having no consequential thoughts that I can recognize. Something about the music in my headphones or the conversation around me or both or something different entirely. I know this – I am sober, I love you, I love M, and I lovemy little sister and my older brother. I love the Irish, their (perhaps abating?) culture and I love nighttime.

It has been too long since I’ve sent you a letter and this is my last chance before the post office closes. I’m sorry I’ve been a bit lacking in my letters these last few weeks – life has actually been pretty busy. Mostly just things I’ve found to occupy my own time – bike rides, bars, etc. I’ve been writing poems again to no real avail –but any practice is good, eh? I took my coffee with cream and sugar today – that is something different in my life. Time to get this letter in the mail. I love you so much Catie Young. I am sorry this letter isn’t up to my standards. I’ll have a better one to you soon.


                                                                                    All my love,

                                                                                                Benjamin




Catie,

Let us celebrate with wine and sweet words – let us dance away this distance curse. Let us swear by our hearts and pens that we’ll see each other again …


… and soon.


I feel the only poetry I have left in me is for you. When I ran from you on eighth street I then turned to watch the taillights disappear. I watched the sky for the aeroplane that would bring me to you again … and soon.


I have dreamed of being like Daniel Plainview. To see “nothing worth liking in people” and to “not have to look past that to get what I need.” But you have opened my eyes to the beauty in people, the insatiable beauty in you, your movements and stillness.

I am going to have to purchase For Emma on vinyl for myself. It is such a record. “Blinded, I was blindsided.” That lyric, repetitive and simple as it is has haunted me with your departure to Seattle. I doubt or curse technology for my love or need or dependance or WHATEVER of it. But now I thank the gods in whom I don’t believe for it. To know in a few seconds I can say “je t’aime” over 500 miles of highway and mountain … it brings me the joy of Christmas as a child. The thrill of a new balsa-wood airplane or bb gun. The knowing of love that I once only felt from family but now know I have even MORE in you.

Something about Justin Vernon’s voice has you in it for me. The falsetto? No. The poetry? Maybe. I think it is the beauty of a wavering confidence. So much strength, yet that knowing of not knowing, as Socrates said. (See, I am not some illiterate barista, although I did have to look up if it was Socrates who said it. I was thinking Plato – and I guess he probably learned it from there anyway.) I am confident of this one though –


“The air was soft,

the stars so fine,

the promise of every cobbled

alley so great

I thought I was in a dream.”

(- Kerouac)


This quote means to me that we will travel Europe together someday. We will see Paris and maybe smoke a bit in Amsterdam and ride horses on the beaches of France. I guess all good music reminds me of you a bit. The National’s album “Boxer,” especially the song Fake Empire remembers me to our experiences in America (the “fake empire”) and gives me hope for your time in Europe because we did pretty damn well here.

Oh shit. This is hard. I am at tenth street and alone, talking to Maggie, the cocktail waitress, the “Wednesday Special,” and I am realizing how un-ready I am for you to be gone. Je t’aime. Je t’aime. Je t’aime. You are my friend, the only one worth mentioning. If I had a better relationship with my family I’d write home about you every day.

Je t’aime, je t’aime, je t’aime.

I think I will continue at the “M” tomorrow.



And the M. It is strange to think I’ve been awake for around four hours and the only words I’ve said are “iced americano, four shots, please.” I like that I can go that long without needing to communicate with anyone.



So many thoughts go through a person’s head every day. Is that energy? And how much is too much? And is wine really proof that god loves us and wants us to be happy? If I shared all the things running through my head in 1 day I think my fingers would fall off. I know it is this way with everyone – or at least I think it is. There are a few people I’ve met who, not negatively, don’t seem to be doing much thinking. All this to build up to: the thought that has been dominant the last couple of weeks is that I am thankful and pretty fucking lucky to have you as a best friend. Thank you miss Young. So much.

“Cinderella through the room,

I glide and swan cause                                    [drawing of shovel, dirt]

I’m the best slow dancer

in the universe.”



“It’s getting old, I know. I know. You still look good to me in that knee-length checkered dress.”


Oh, Catie. The thought of sitting with you at a café in Seattle (or Paris or Aix or Toledo or Barcelona or Dublin or Boise or …) has me not thoroughly enjoying this americano. It is so strange to me – I feel lost here now. And I’ve always prided myself on my independence. Ha! Maybe I’ll have to make trips to Seattle a little more permanent :).

Sorry about the stains on these pages – oil from leftover Chinese food. Sad, sad days.

I love that you can walk past a reflective window and not look at yourself. You may not know this but that is a rare quality. I love how you will get into those very serious walking strides when you want to be somewhere else. I love how classy you look when smoking a cigarette. No desperation in it. I love the not-so-subtle eye rolls when you disapprove of one of my bad jokes. And how quiet you are when one of your favorite lines in a song comes on. It is so important to be comfortable in the quiet. Most people can’t be, at least for long, and you and I crave it. And we can share the same quiet space. I spend so much time every day thinking of how I can tell you how special you are to me. I hope you know that. To me you are the soft rain – beautiful, graceful, enlivening. You make me appreciate the warmth of candlelight. “Cause variables lurk in the wine – because the bed’s warm and it’s cold out, that’s a good sign.”

There are so many lyrics and excerpts from songs that apply to you. And if for none of the other reasons, that makes me know the life you are living is right. I can only hope the same thing for myself.



I can’t wait

                                                [drawing of globe]     

                                                                                                to see all this



                                                                                    with you.



“that season left the world

and then returned

and now you’re lit up by the city.”




I love you.

Benjamin