Correspondence 7

(For a newer draft of this letter within the completed series of letters, click here.)

Dear Sophia,

I apologize for not asking you sooner about your subsequent past. I intended to do so. It is difficult for a person so lost in his own past to maintain curiosity about another.

As usual, you are right in your criticism. Perhaps you can live my life for me. Ah, but that would not work either, would it? I suspect you are not immune to the commonplace form of ignorance that so easily afflicts us all. I will never understand how unaware we can be about our own motivations. What does it say about self-absorption that, for all of the attention, we know less about who we are afterwards?

I will never understand how we can at once be so free and so out of control. What paths would we take were it not for the light other people cast on us? I think you're the only person I have every taken seriously. You actually prompt me to wonder about what's inside you.

Have I told you how weary I have become of the trail of my life? To find my way back, I need only follow the blunders I have made which dot the course more frequently than mile markers. I am a sick man and cannot seem to get much better on my own. What is the difference between self-help and self-medication? I have started to consider the possibility that there is something more dysfunctional about me than these particular missteps.

Look at what I am doing. I am lying another trap for myself. Enough of all this. Forgive me for being so slow to right myself.

I agree with your course. Let's move on. Let's be friends, ask questions, and tell stories. We would both be benefitted by that, right?

The other day I was washing my hands in the lavatory at my workplace. As I was rubbing my fingers into my palms to lather, the building custodian entered. I knew what he looked like, but did not know his name. He never said anything. He had a couple rolls of toilet paper tucked under his arms. He was checking the supplies. He was bashful and cast his eyes down upon registering my presence. He darted from stall to stall. While he riffled through the keys on his large key ring, I greeted him. He turned towards me with a suprised look. "Good afternoon," he replied with a little hesitation. Not knowing what to add and thinking it too obvious to compliment him on the cleanliness of the facility, I asked him instead about his plans for the weekend. He smile and looked more at ease. His shoulders sagged a bit. He told me he was taking his wife and child to the local amusement park to celebrate his son's good grades in school. I told him that sounded swell and wished him a good time. He smiled again and returned ot his duties. I watched him grab an orphaned wad of paper from the ground and flick it into the trashcan. He told me to have a good evening. The jingle of his keys followed behind him and reminded me of the sound of a cowboy's spurs. As I discareded my papers towels into the recepticle, I thought about what had transpired. It seemed as though in an unplanned moment I had involved myself in a situation that feature two of the topics from your last letter. At once, I was a participant in a conventional conversation and was helping someone (albeit in a nearly insignificant way). I know it helped me. Small, congenial human interactions go a long way. I think we managed to care for each other a lot more than the people who ask me what I do for a living while looking past me to see if someone else more important has been freed up for conversation.

What's new with you? Do you have any stories you'd like to share?

Alan