(Though this is really just further proof that I am a deranged romantic who nevertheless fails to retain the hearts of those he truly loves.)
"My dear,
It seems you've worn me out.
Since you've been gone, I spend my time sleeping, dreaming.
For the past five hours I've been asleep.
I'm sorry I missed your attempts to contact me.
But you were with me through all the minutes. "
"I'm listening to third eye blind and uploading obnoxious pictures to facebook and sending you messages and speaking to my friends seulement en français. after having too too much to drink and smoke and talking with keaton about the girls we were in love with and exposing myself completely to exes and prospects of exes and people I don't even know and people I know too well. but really, the purpose is to say: happy birthday, ms. elizabeth prescott dirth. and that is all. I don't care how badly I've made things up. bonne nuit. ou bon matin, whichever. My friend is just getting up to go to work now. he is in pictures from just seven hours ago, and we just got our first noise complaint. so I think it;s time for me to go to bed. so for me it is goodnight.
msimon"
"I wanted to thank you once again for that evening. Maybe it was the late hour or the absinthe or (god forbid) actual feelings, but I was all so very sad when I crawled into bed. My pillows just can't compare to your body - they weren't warm enough, smooth enough, human enough. I felt, after ten minutes of having left you, like I feel when I think of things two years ago (forever in my time, you understand), as if you were already so far away, already as unattainable as my former friends and lovers. Maybe it was just because of the 97% in so many regards that I am where I am now. I realise this was just a two day vacation for you, but me, I'm in my real life, my homely habitat, and it's not something I can just leave behind no matter how hard I would want to. I'm glad a routine trip to a favourite café ended like that. And of course, when you come back, I would love to see you again. for coffee or whatever you can stomach. I hope that you had a good flight and that I will speak to you again. If that's not a probability, then I have to say it was nice to have met you, and my time with you, albeit brief, was too pleasant.
Take care et à bientôt,
Mitchell Walker Simon"
"stop being so fucking charming. .
you were probably a whole 1/3 of my inability to sleep at all last night."
And now a letter to my Keaton, with whom I have shared many, many days of my life. One more, sans lui:
"Just woke from my slumber. Well. a half hour ago or so. By my family, asking for my presence at the dinner table which offered turkey and mashed potatoes and corn and asparagus and my orange juice. Thanksgiving, half awake and irritable. And then I was told to do the dishes, a task I've never had to perform made more difficult by my stupor and the lack of instructions provided by la famille. And then taking out the trash. I realise these are basic tasks, but basic was not my childhood. Anyway. Here I sit now with my sweating hands typing letters on the keyboard of my laptop, accurate in name, half chilled by the air conditioning, half warmed by the plethora of sheets on my bed, and letting the Decemberists sing their song of a mariner with a personal vendetta. And now to you I will relate my own tale of Friday and Concord.
What time did I fall to bed on the morning before? Was it one? Was it two? The most I can recall is that I awoke at ten o'clock. My father was down in the living room watching the Olympics with my brother. My step-mother was away at the wedding shower for my uncle but she had left a muffin and box of raspberries for each of the men. Not normal by any means, but appreciated considering the expense of raspberry boxes. Anyway, the immediate goal of the morning was to get us some suits for previously mentioned wedding, and that we did. It was torturous because my father wanted us to wear matching suits, because he's anal like that, and because my brothers are aged seven and thirteen years, we couldn't go to my regular suit place because their clientele is not often preteen boys. But I did get a nice, tight suit as well as some ties. a black one. a dark grey one. a grey/silver one. and a bright blue one. We had to find shirts and shoes for the younger ones, and for that we turned to the mall, the hell of all hells. I saw a twelve year old girl who wasn't wearing pants. Disgusting beyond anything. I used to want to be a mall rat, back when malls and rats were cool. Now, I wish both would cease. We didn't find what we were looking for. And it was twelve thirty or so. Then, like a volcanic island in the sea of twelve year old vaginas (you must excuse my metaphors, I am still asleep. In fact, disregard this whole email. This is not my style of writing . . not that I've entirely found it. This is one of many, let's say. If you waited a week, I could edit this out of all recognition. Maybe my writing suffers from such. Or maybe it's made better by my many writing minds.) my best friend, Hannah F. LeBlanc texts me a "where the fuck are you" of sorts. And I rush the family home so that Hannah and I can go to Target. Of course, my brother wanted to come with us, and I wanted him to. Hannah said that he was immature, which is valid considering he's thirteen. But he and I have actually been getting along recently. Just in time for my departure. But one of the reasons why we've been able to communicate so well is because he's matured slightly. And him being with such mature people as me and Hannah will only help it more. Anyway, he wanted to come with us, and therefore my other brother wanted to tag along. But I wouldn't want to babysit those two, so I made my father come, too. For his help with the children and for his wallet, without which I would not live. A problem, I know, but one last chance. and it was all stuff for university. Not a personal shopping spree. I don't usually do those.
So. We go home and drop off the suits. I check my email, grab a box of berries, put my brother in the car, and drive to get Hannah, who lives two minutes up my road. Anyway. We get to Target and my father and brother, driving separately, have already beaten us there. Fuck, I'm making this story way too detailed. But I like to remember it like that. So. We buy sunglasses, sheets, towels, pillows. Good shop. blah blah blah. I don't mean to bore you. You've probably skipped over most of this, anyway. .
Many conversations in the store which I won't explain.
My father pays. Not too much stuff, anyway. He's happy to. I love him. Really I do, not just for that. An awkward place in the message to put it, though. Distorted meaning. = interweb.
We go back to Hannah's house. I play with her dog and cat (I can't find Stella! She's been missing all today. I'm worried, really. I wanted to sleep with her in my nap, but she was MIA) and watch the olympics and eat pie and talk to Emma on skype and she's surprised to hear that I have friends. God, I really do love her. Way too extreme, but provoking enough. And beautiful. Um. yes, And then we call Kate and ask what the deal is for the night. Bekah's to swim at five, was the message. So we get our things and head to Concord. Had a cup of coffee. Get to Bekah's and nobody is there. Then Kate comes and we frisbee on Bekah's lawn. Then Bekah comes home with her new backpack. Then Bekah's mother comes home. Then Bekah's sister comes home. Then Bekah's father comes home. A well-paced family. We are told that we are swimming in a river in Canterbury, a few minutes away. We get into Bekah's car and drive. A french loaf stale and hollowed. Drive into the woods. Walk a few minutes among the mosquitoes. I have so many mosquito bites. Especially one on my wrist. Especially because it's the most immediately itchy. The river is flooded in more than one location - certainly not swimmable with the current. So we decide to go back to the car and drive to the docks, where Kate and Alex Terry had their first sober sex. And the place where all the Concord kids go to swim. Although I lived in Concord, and still do, I am not a Concord kid. I went to a year of middle school in Concord, so I know of all these people, but after I started going to school in Manchester I forgot to speak anymore to my sixth grade pals. Anyway, Bekah still retains most of her Concord roots and has been showing me around the city these past few weeks, as courtesy. The docks are off of exit three on 89. The St. Paul's boathouse, which I am jealous of. Although, we're making a new one soon, so it will be just as good. And Derryfield, which is better by nature. There are people on the physical docks, so we go to a rock down the river. (My tenses are changing in this little email. Pay no bother. Again, were I to edit this before pressing send, it would lose most of its originality). I can't swim as well as Kate and Hannah, but luckily neither can Bekah. I can't float - I'm too small. The sky is beautiful as the sun sets on the trees and the river. I've never imagined a more New Hampshire place at a more New Hampshire time. It made me want to cry as I sat on the lillied rock watching my friends. Just, too perfect.
Anyway. It seems as though a dock is free, so Kate and Hannah swim over while Bekah and I walk, carrying their things. We talk about Concord and Concord people and Emmy Kinsler and Ginn Fang coming to Radiohead and she hasn't a clue. The docks are a take off strip and the water is warm and cold.
There are boys on the other dock and Bekah is convinced she knows one of them, Ben, but she doesn't have her glasses. I wave to them. They're all Brown students, like Emma, and like Hannah will be. Hipster types. Though, the LeBlanc sisters are no hipsters. I scraped my back on the docks and Hannah's breasts are visible through her shirt. She has no bathing suit. The boys wait until we leave to leave and then in the parking lot the fake surprise of "...Bekah?". Oh, Ben. Why did we have to put it off until the car? They all change except me. I, who left my clothes in my car. The proper thing to do.
I had six dollars in my wallet.
They want to go to a petting zoo/ice cream place. So we went. It was cold as cold can be when you're wet and in a bathing suit. And my frozen yogurt didn't help. The goats were too friendly. and the peacocks were asleep.
We were going to go back to Bekah's for pesto, but got sidetracked on the way. Side. tracked. There is an old set of train tracks that runs through Concord. I've always wanted to go explore them. Tonight we did. We snuck down from the overpass and walked what seemed like forever along the rocks and tracks, Bekah whispering to us to keep quiet. But no one was going to see us anyway. Then she pulled us the the right, into a field or parking lot of some kind and we looked to the south and saw what was apparently an old train stop. The skeletons of which we stood beneath. It was dark by this time, and broken glass was scattered all about. Going through that, however, we emerged into another field, and stumbling over a pile of bricks and glass, we came to another urban skeleton. This time, an old warehouse, gone bankrupt years ago and deteriorating with each passing winter. It was enormous and there were artifacts of all kinds scattered about. I got a white shoe and sole, Kate a drawer, Hannah the for sale sign. We crept farther into the cave until we got to a clear patch. Grasses were sprouting from the rubble and fireflies flew around us. We sat for fifteen minutes, staring at the waste and the new that was emerging from it, taking it back. It was one of the most beautiful things I've seen in Concord, the most that night. I wish I could stay forever and rebuild, but it was too dark. We're going back soon. I'll take you some pictures. and me.
But we made our way back. And it was almost ten o'clock. Which meant almost time for Pineapple Express. Funny even when not high. Though, I was delirious with fatigue, which might have helped. And I'm not one for stupid comedies, but it was quite enjoyable.
Maybe that's all I have to say about that night. We went back to Bekah's to get me some coffee and me and Hannah home to Manchester by one o'clock curfew. And it was a lovely ride down, like it had been a lovely ride up. And a lovely time in Concord, a time which fulfilled all those desires I had had. all those desires which related to Concord, my semi-home, but place of residence to say the least. I explored what I always wanted to, and did it with those friends who were most available. But the group was a special group in my life, a special brand, and I'm glad it was them.
Shit, that's too much about me. Me, now almost ready to leave this town forever. Me, the one who knows he will miss his friends but will find new and maybe better ones. Me, who speaks in third person. But is too tired to go back and change it.
Ga. That made it all real. Now I wish my reality to include you in more than just an email. So get some internet and talk to me, silly boy.
m.simon"
and it did.
That post contained some of the most romantic things I've ever heard.
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