gorgeous bear.

letters to danielle: to and from

 

hi ugly,

i came across my pile of letters from you recently. you know i've saved them all, even the silly notes written during the boredom of high school physics. i can't say i remember why we all started calling each other those ridiculous nicknames...'smelly' and 'ugly' are not obvious terms of endearment, but i do recall us being quite amused by them, as we were by most things.

i love this note so much. reading it is like hearing your voice again. it brings me back to that time when everything is possible and the road ahead seems endless. when every little action of a certain boy was unbelievably fascinating and significant. when nothing was more important than tests and papers and friends and crushes.

i've been talking about you with our shared friends more than ever lately. i'd be lying if i said it was easy to do; in many ways, it's unbelievably hard. i end up dreaming that you're alive and well and living in some far off fabulous place. which, maybe, in some way, you are. who knows? i still try to find you, wherever you are. even though i know this is a movie that doesn't give an answer. 

oh well! c'est la vie...

love, 

smelly

 

letters to danielle: march 21, 2010

dearest,

some days i just miss you. especially so when i'm feeling weird, and irrelevant, and tongue-tied.  the days when i wish so much i could share with you the joyful lunacy of this life and you would get it and not judge. that i could tell you any nutty, beautiful, crazy, fucked-up thought and not regret doing so.  that you could appreciate the awkwardness, the loneliness, the wistfulness. 

...and then still be able to tell me to stop writing the sentimental crapola that was that last paragraph!!!  

i always felt that you got me.  maybe that's not true.  maybe i have made you that way in my memory.  maybe you wouldn't understand the way i think you would.  but in any case it's a comfort, however bittersweet, to believe that you would.

some things we most likely would hot have agreed on. the feminist in you simply could not stand seeing 'too many boobs and too much blood,' as you put it, in movies, or even tolerate the mere existence of strip clubs.  i don't think you would understand how someone who identifies as a feminist and grew up listening to 'free to be you and me' could watch porn or read erotica or have no problem with her boyfriend going to a strip joint.  it would probably make you NUTS.  or maybe you would have come to a diffferent level of acceptance at this point in your life.  i'll never know, but i'd like to think we could fight it out, get irrationally pissed off, eventually laugh our asses off about it, and always love and respect each other. 

i'm sure that the further i get from knowing the real you, the more idealized my image of the remembered you will become.  yours will become a friendship unmatched and unmatchable. but that's okay. i kinda like it that way.

love you, 

tara. xo.

letters to danielle: birthday

danielle,

today is your birthday. strange to think of it, as my mind's image of you is now frozen in time. i look for you in the piles of pictures i have been sorting through lately.  photography seems everywhere now, and i wish it had been that way then, so i could have more of you. or, more honestly, that you were still around, to groan about the changes of age and moan about seeing your picture on facebook. but as it is, i settle for those too few, long ago developed snapshots of another time, sticking to each other in boxes and curling at the edges.  

contrary to popular sentiment, i miss you more as time moves on. memories are bittersweet. pictures still bring an ache. i find myself looking for myself as i look for you.  life is good, and i am happy.  but i know the world would be a much better place were you still around to share it.

love,

tara. xo.

letter three.

hi danielle,

during the last few days i was lucky enough to spend some time with my friend angi(e). since i have known her, she has spelled her name without an e, having dropped the heretofore offending letter at age 12 or so.  i think that was the age i began drawing a heart after my name at all times.  angelina, as i like to call her,  is currently bringing the 'e' back.  but i keep seeing it as an add-on so i will make it a parenthetical 'e' for the time being.

she's always been an anglophile, like we were back in the day.  a bit younger, so blur and coldplay to our smiths and the cure.  but a cool ass rocker chick all the same.  i think you would like her.  she's funny and smart and sweet and can play pool and poker and drink anyone under the table.  and so in a good way!  like you, she not only dreamed of moving to london, but found a way to do it.  and being with her reminds of me of how much she rocks as a friend and how i wish we could be in the same part of the world more often.

a picture of her, with someone else's hand, stolen from facebook:

changed my mind - i know you would like her.

time for bed. sleep well.

love,

tara

letter two.

hey danielle,

i stumbled upon this card on etsy and of course thought of you.  the inside says 'the more i love you.'  funny, huh?  god, how cool was morrissey then?  just so you know he's just as cool now.  remember when we used to send letters in the names of the various smiths' members?  i hate sounding like the proverbial old fogy ('kids, in my day music was just better...'), but well, it just was.  

it's almost that day.  almost nine.  every now and then i still dream.  i know it's over, still i cling.

love you,

t.

letter one.

dear danielle,

yes, it's been a long time since i last wrote. the years are flying by and it's hard to keep up. cliché, i know, but you know what they say about clichés. or is cliché already plural? not sure, but i think i should stop writing 'cliché' in any case.

i wanted to have a lot more to tell you by now. i wanted to live up to all of the expectations i had of myself for you. but the best plans and all...(see above). i'm trying to do better from now on.

for once and for all, i will create my life, the life i want. i'll keep you posted on my progress here. that way you always know how to find me and see what i'm up to.

but just so you know, i am not going to spend a lot of time on anything too serious. we used to be oh so serious, didn't we? seems like it. watching ourselves, as da gorge would say. i guess that's what you do when you're so young. but looking back i wish we had helped each other be less so; still passionate, but less 'angry young man' about it all. maybe if we had worried less and done more, just lived and created without regard for the grade we would get at the end, maybe then we would both be in a different place right now.

i for one am tired of grades. especially when i'm the one handing them out. so i'm going to try, in this silly, non-consequential, no one really cares but us part of the interwebs to prove to you and to myself that we can make and do things that are ugly and amateur and bad but beautiful and strange and wonderful and good all at the same time. without trying for straight As or recognition or riches or living up to who or what we think should be by this point.

so what do you think?

miss you.

tara.
xo.

p.s. almost forgot - hear my voice in your head and think of me kindly.