Dear Friends, No, I don’t want to think of responsibilities . . . comes first into my mind. Right now I want to take this literally—neural impulses—I mean take this! Take them somewhere, I don’t mind where, so long as it isn’t too far away, or to the point. There are no justifications in Heaven, I’ve decided, and no reasons here on earth, I mean where I am, here being with friends, tonight. There seemed to be a reason somewhere about here, but it must have been let out with the cat, for no one will let on to it, so to speak. Cat got your tongue? I still have this image, or at least this illusion, of several dear friends who can both hear and understand, if you will, this prose, this careful embarkation into the possibilities, the states, Véroia, Dráma, Komotini, etcetera, one at a time, but I suppose this is harmless enough. I am not here as an important character (Iota). I’m not here, omen or otherwise, to tell you anything. I mean I don’t mean anything by running on this way, except to get where I’m going. My life is entirely too obscure and too formal to discuss. It isn’t a trick. I’ll resign myself to the letter; history is too figurative. It isn’t necessary, and I don’t want to be more specific. What would a politician make of this? No, it doesn’t concern me, nor amy ethnic consideration, although it has engaged my attention, clutch. Being with friends, and we are all quiet, and I am always questioning, as if that were something to do, but it isn’t, I think. Here, write this. Being with friends, sitting, listening to music, facing the music, she is reading, he is tapping his foot, we are here and we are here, we are quiet. It is not we would would scream at boredom, because we seem to like it! Maybe we do. It is the thing to do. It is a thing to do. We fear anything that might be empty, but nothing ever is, to my mind. Nothing is empty, and if there are no rules here, and nothing to say, then I’ll try to say it. Can it be so singular, as to be the only one? No, I don’t understand, and even if I want to be understood. I don’t mean to imply that there can be an understanding. I want to get out from under all that. Understandings seldom have a way with words, I understand, although I’ve seldom seen them, or so I believe. Neither do I propose, marriage for example, that all this must be taken on faith, for I think that I must do the taking, and the giving as well, at least as well as I can, given that all this might be put in quotes, and it wouldn’t matter. It still wouldn’t be material. It wouldn’t make a difference, we say. I said it once. There. More than once. Twice. No, I don’t want to have anything done by this, although something might add up anyway. All expressions, I’ve heard, can’t be expected to stay on faces, just as a word might smile, I expect, or for there to be an end to each journey, and a failure to each realization.
June 1972