#28 a ridiculous love letter

Hello boy,

I was kind of insecure about writing you a long letter but I think I was honest enough with you for you to expect me to write you a long letter so I just needed to be honest to myself and send it. The long letter would eventually be written anyway since I like to write good stories and send long letters to strangers.

I just don’t know where to start. It was easier to have meaningful conversations when you were here, 5 minutes ago, although I don’t expect this letter either meaningful or a conversation. Ok, here we go (just cleaned the bathroom so I’m ready to go at least for a paragraph, before I go for the room). As soon as you left I thought to myself – what an amazing weekend! what a great love story! hiking, swimming, having philosophical discussions, cute boy with the softest hands in the world, laughing and drinking wine and having tapas…  and then I thought, crap! I’ve seen this before! and a movie popped up in my head and I said what a cliché! Have you seen (I know you haven’t and please don’t go and see it, it’s a girls romantic indie movie and I’m almost certain that your truth is different than mine) Before Sunrise? Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy meet on interrail train have philosophic conversations over wine and walks by the river and they know they only have until sunrise to do it ‘cos they are splitting the next day. What a cliché we are! (I’m going to watch the movie later just to see if we made better story - by the way, kind of a cheap tip leaving 1 cent on the hall floor, after what I did for you ;)!). And the strangest thing is me only remembering this now since we talked about the Waking Life movie which is also by the same director and both characters from Before Sunrise show up at some point having interesting bed talk and even when I’m writing you I’m feeling shocked and then Robert Flack sings “telling my whole life in his words, killing me softly” (and, I know, how corny of me… this was the moment when, if you were here I’d say - I know, I’m pretty ridiculous and you would say that you don’t like when I say ridiculous and you would say something like unusual and I would be ok with that).

Well, by now I just hope you’re smiling with your lovely eyes and no longer scared about receiving a letter from a stranger.

If not, I’ll try to explain it to you. And it meets the Saudade conversation. I write long letters to strangers (and I don’t always send them) because writing is a memory exercise. Once you write about some event, some discussion, you select the words and with that you are forced to relive the moment so it just sticks to your memory better. You would say that it’s living in the past, revisiting good memories as if we couldn’t have good moments in the present or in the future, like the Saudade thing we discussed in the car on our way from the beautiful afternoon by the river, and I would disagree and I would change the conversation to today’s 6am and the meaning of life bed talk and I'd just refute the reproduction theory and create a new one where I think that our goal in life is to live as well as we can and get to our last moments and check our memory and say – fuck yeah, what a good life I had, so many amazing stories, so many meaningful events, so many beautiful moments. And because everyday life will always have a huge portion on boredom, and routine, and disappointment, I write about the good things so when I’m 94 I’m able to recheck and say – God (and by God I mean God the expression not the creator), in 2014 I had a movie like love story for 48h and that is just crazy and cool. My grandmother died with Alzheimer’s and she had it maybe for the last 10 years of her life and it was just sad to see her sitting outside watching the roses and sometimes I think she had Alzheimer’s because she didn’t have a happy life so she didn’t have good memories to hold on to so she didn’t even want to exercise her memory. I don’t think she ever wrote a line. Or maybe she did have the happy moments (I’m pretty sure she did) and she didn’t plant them in a way she could revisit them and so she got Alzheimer’s and this doesn’t make any sense ‘cos you cannot prevent a disease just by writing long letters, I know.

And this is the moment when you think (and I have not a clue if this is what you think, how could I, you’re such a strange wonderful different person, I can only guess!) that I’m not really writing you, I’m writing to myself and I write long letters to strangers because I don’t like the “dear diary today I met a nice boy” literary style but, in my defense, if I may, I’d say that at least I’m sharing it and letting you know that I had a great time with you and that is just nice of me. Maybe? Or just the fact that even not believing in absolute truths, showing you my version of this weekend, this can be a funny thing and you can compare it to your memories and just laugh a little bit and say I didn’t see it this way, how strange we all are with our different perspective...

By now I’m kind of wondering if I’m really going to send you this letter or if I just save myself from the embarrassment and publish it on one of my anonymous private blogs that no-one reads. (I’ll leave the decision for later).

And then I realize that it’s not just for me and my memory, this letter. Well… it is in a sense that everything we do freely is a selfish act to make us feel good (and this is another subject – oh, we should have had this conversation! I would love to know your ideas about it!) but I wouldn’t be happy with myself if I didn’t tell you that you are the cutest guy ever and your hands are just so good to hold because they are so soft and that you look terribly sexy in those shirts of yours (and wet, on Saturday night, under the rain… just wow!) and that I’m happy that I didn’t even try to take a picture of you ‘cos I’m so bad at photography that I’m pretty sure that it could never match the image that I keep in the back of my eyes and then I remember the pictures Othe guys from the tour took and my favorite of you is the one where you’re wearing my sweater and it’s so cool of you to accept it ‘cos most guys, even freezing, would say no just not to look ridiculous and it’s so amazing how you don’t look ridiculous just because you don’t even care about it and that is so fucking rare and beautiful! (By the way, if you need a raincoat go for an orange one with a hoodie!) You called me unusual and I just think that you don’t have a slight notion of how unusual you are! And not only in my flower happy world, but in the real world where people go to work and have “normal” (I just hate this word) jobs and mortgages and fat kids and that jog only to look good on the eyes of the others. You, my darling, are the unusual one here. You’re so brutally honest to yourself, it’s just scary and I never met anyone like that. And your quietness on knowing the fucked up world we live in and still peacefully accept it… and I shouldn’t be writing these things, ‘cos now I really wish you were here just so I could steal part of that amazing way of being you got. Bam! Saudade!

It’s 16.24 and I haven’t eaten anything and my world just looks ridiculous (and now it’s really the appropriate word) and I just wish I was more like you and have the organized life and schedules and ability to look at the hours and say I should be eating ‘cos this is not healthy, so I’m going downstairs to get something and be back for this letter with some energy on my brain.

Ok, just did it and also took the walk to go to the book fair and bought Murakami’s “Kafka by the shore”. Funny story here – got there and said exactly what you told me to Murakami’s book something with Kafka on the title and the guys said oh, it’s that one that got destroyed by the rain on Saturday and I was like… oh… the rain on Saturday… and they showed me the book and it was actually another book and yes, it’s in a very bad shape, they won’t be able to sell it so I just asked for them to put a price on it ‘cos it’s still readable and I would like to keep Saturday’s night rain with me. (I’m honestly blushing while I write this and the only reason I can actually say these things is because we will never meet again). I’ll go back there at the end of the week to prevent the book and the rain to be thrown to the garbage – that would be a sad thing! And also – I’ve checked Murakami on internet and I was very happy to see that I will for sure love it (you are so right about it!) and I knew that when I saw that he wrote “Norwegian Wood”, probably the only Japanese movie I saw and loved it. I’m pretty sure you haven’t seen it – it’s not from the 50’s, it’s a 2010, or maybe you did ‘cos that was when you were there, right?, doesn’t matter, I loved it and if he’s honest and coherent with his writing I’m 100% I’ll love this book and hopefully the rainy one too.  And it feels good to have the book here and to see how big it is because that will keep you with me for a little bit longer. I might even need to write you a second letter to tell you my impression on it, I’m just not sure if I’ll send that one. (yes, I’ve made up my mind and you’ll get this silly love letter).

Some (beautiful) people say thank you for the great weekend and some others write long love letters while they could just say “it was honestly a pleasure to meet you and that you became such an amazing story of my life”. 

And because we also talked about Pessoa, the crazy Portuguese poet with multiple personalities (or he just isolated the different aspects of himself like I do) here is poem for you, with the words ridiculous and love letters together for you to find a proper translation (I’m pretty sure that even google translator can help you get the point)

Todas as cartas de amor são
Ridículas.
Não seriam cartas de amor se não fossem
Ridículas. 

Também escrevi em meu tempo cartas de amor,
Como as outras,
Ridículas.

As cartas de amor, se há amor,
Têm de ser
Ridículas.

Mas, afinal,
Só as criaturas que nunca escreveram Cartas de amor
É que são
Ridículas.

Quem me dera no tempo em que escrevia
Sem dar por isso
Cartas de amor
Ridículas.

A verdade é que hoje
As minhas memórias
Dessas cartas de amor
É que são
Ridículas. 

(Todas as palavras esdrúxulas,
Como os sentimentos esdrúxulos,
São naturalmente
Ridículas.) 

Álvaro de Campos, 21-10-1935

I could continue this letter forever and I might need, at some point, to write you another one on some kind of existential question or just to share a point of view, from my world to yours but now i’m about to let you go to your PhD quiet Professor life and I just hope you know that this letter doesn’t require a reply.

Just to finish in a less silly corny style, the author Ricardo told you should check was Miguel Torga, don’t forget to listen to the dialogues of the "Waking Life", watch Von Trier’s “Dogville”,  and read Marguerite 
Duras’ “The Sea Wall” (both on the decadence of the human being as an individual) and  - to finish with a POP touch - don’t forget to keep me in mind.