Letter to A Best Friend
An ode to letting go
Dearest compañero,
Loved the photos from Malaga and happy to know your experience abroad agrees with your constitution for cafes, reading and watching people. Here in New York the last trees that lined the streets of the west village have been picked up by the sanitation department. The holidays are officially over. Back to basics. How are you? No, don’t answer that. But allow me the indulgence of writing you a letter that in all probability I will not send. Not from avoidance but sensitivity and caution. Waiting like we do for Spring in the midst of winter, for the right time.
It’s not only friendship that binds us. But also the choices we have each made. As the holidays peter out and our lives return to their normal rhythms I am left with the aftertaste of broken promises. Of absence. Not with regret or spite but the humbled recognition of that hollow place, estrangement, where I have lived for nearly a decade from my daughters. You better than anyone knows the tale I lived. The hit and run history of the heart. And to think, I could get away with seizing my own happiness leaving everyone unscathed. But you never judged me. When we delude ourselves we delude others. And we do greater harm by our denial. Betraying our sense of doing the right thing.
How odd or coincidental as best friends that we have broken those same boundaries of the heart. So now it is your turn, in the opera of love and loss, to make your way out without any further casualties. Divorce and discovering a new lease on the possibilities of love. I am happy for you. But I allude to your own children. I honestly believe the pursuit of happiness should not come at the expense of others. There. I said it. Especially to one’s children. If I sound like Martha Stewart, it doesn’t matter. We both know that anger and love are connected to the same artery. If we are the adults in the room we need to act like one. But not by a committee of one. Victimhood is not becoming of either of us. It mugs us from a sense of clarity. How life withering this feeling of estrangement. Made worse when we commit to enlarging it.
All I can say is : Avoid the hard confining edges of either or thinking. For that matter, ever putting oneself into such confines. It compromises freedom of choice. It also obstructs vision. Something both of us feed on for emotional sustenance. You the poet, the songsmith, the troubadour know this better than most. What I am trying to say is don’t let the pursuit of happiness, even in these last laps of life, preclude all you held dear. I know this. You know I know. Someone deeply wounded you long ago as a boy and never took ownership. Could that be what is complicating matters? It is so wonderful to be in love again but not to fall. Don’t allow the magic of falling in love to pry you away from old friends and family. Cocoons are for butterflies. Not for parents of adult children.
Our lives pass by with the velocity of forgetfulness. Even if you were bruised it was a passing blow. Why not seek the spaces of wellness in between. The spite of the world should never enter into our personal lives. Your gentleness and sense of consideration has always been your mojo. As one, long term abandoner, who has not resolved past crimes, I urge, ask, suggest, that you consider: generosity and forgiveness, the strength of patience even when the heart breaks or is broken by the heedlessness of another. Take heed, take the highest road possible. Pay the tolls if required. The highest road beyond all rancor, enmity and resentment. And so, forgive, as leaves do when branches release them. Forgive with all the love hope and care you accumulated over a life well lived. And embrace small openings where the light can get back in. Do this, get back to me, and excuse the effrontery of my love for you as a friend.
David
Jan 2, 2025
