Aubrey,

 

The tyranny of a blank page.  I’ve half pondered things I’ve thought in conjuncture with your name in the past few days- just idle things while I’ve been walking alongside the village, in the foliage, or idling through a book… but none of them are really solidifying as important or even memorable things, so I’m not only having a hard time convincing myself to tell you any of them… but also to remember quite what they were. So right up front I should (and will) warn you that this letter will be flighty, piece-meal in place, and nigh unto incoherent in others.  I regret if it turns into more of a journal piece.  Well, I suppose it wouldn’t do that- even if it did smack of the tone, it would be less focused towards finding any patterns- whether in emotions or discoveries or otherwise. Usually my journal entries- for yes, Aubrey, I keep a journal- I can’t remember now if I ever told you?- and the sort of letters to you that are the most akin to those journal entries- are like archaeology excursions- or some kind of personal collection of events, emotions, memories, and possibilities all put on similarly sized shelves or snipped to fit a theme, so that I can put them together to explain how I’m feeling or why I am a certain way.  Maybe it’s not that this mail is different- just that I’m pretty mish-mosh right now, so all the personal archaeology and collections will reflect that.

You’ve said often lately that you don’t know why we’re together- or why you care for me, or what it is that draws us together. You outline our differences, and say that what you feel is a gut feeling, and that there is something here, and we (or you) can leave it at that, and that’s enough, and that perhaps… you don’t want to know what it is.  Aubrey- and I wrote that word and paused for the longest time, as if I don’t know what I want to say- I told you recently that I want you to know me almost as much as I want to know myself. I want that to be the case so that we can be witnesses for each other, so that we can make each other happy and be able to be who we are with each other.  But there’s  bit of introspection where you’re concerned… that you don’t know why you’re with me. And this isn’t me trying to dredge up a stream of compliments. Honestly, what I’m “looking for” is a little more intangible. I think I’m asking you to try and understand me.  I think that’s where the reason for why we have something. And it’s frustrating- not at you- just frustrating in general- that there’s a part of you that somehow can’t travel there, that is content just to be here… and not know why. Or how.

There are a lot of factors that have sculpted the way I’ve been feeling recently. In fact, I don’t know how to give it a name- because I feel good and strange and… different, and even a little wrong, all at once. It’s easier to name the factors than the actual feelings.  But even those- some of those- there’s nothing to say.  Things have been changing on the island, and somehow the past has come back to speak to me, to ask me where I’m going. I don’t know what to say- to you, or to ‘them’- that nebulous thing of the past. I wish I could explain. I’m beginning to wonder if I could ever leave you this letter, or you might think me mad.    I know that’s a lot to absorb, however, it’s an abridged version of the sort of thing I do for myself, how I analyze myself and my mood. When I can bear it.  I wouldn’t normally do it here, and to you, but I’ve been feeling as if I could use… something, like something could help me- and I know that you would want me to tell you if I thought you could help.  I only wish if I knew… if you could. But if we can’t define this- how am I to define anything at all?

            I apologize. That’s not fair of me to say.  I needn’t have an answer for this any more than I need a description for what we are, or why, or if there’s anything here at all. I think it’s just my mind, and the lack of sleep, getting to me.  I’ve been working more with my private studies, and trying to keep my subjects in line with the research plans and the experimentation schedule. Things haven’t been going well. There are too many restrictions, not enough time, and too many answers to questions I don’t have.  I apologize again… it sounds as if I’m complaining to you, rather than just… using how calm you are now, to try and soak up some of this.  To be my ears in a time when you should probably have the use of mine.