Frozen North

I sat to read again the last correspondence Ana had written, then Buttercup, then in searching for a lost transmission somewhere in the blog I found this account of a confessional written some 3 and half years ago. Not so long ago. Ana says, I was in the Turkish islands with my family at that time, and wonders why I would even reminisce at such a thing. Though Ana knows – it (it) being all too much. When I first met you she adds, my mother had just passed and I was looking for something for myself and only for myself. I thought of you as naïve and was angry with your way. But when we met, I recall, we had touched often, we were holding hands behind a pillow where no one would see and there was a connection. So when Ana made the connection after eight years she called me back to her place after placing my hands on her hips. I remember the moment. And now we will never forget. We are both at present in different movies screaming across divides from France to Serbia to Kosovo and echoing through the American plight; for this I think of the frozen winters of Rochester and gray asphalt of Iowa. I will likely never hear from any of them again; these ghosts. Lord Byron did the impossible, not realizing (or realizing all too well) the meaning of our connection and chose to be the victim. After several months of connection and trying I lost patience and called off our courting. Her response remains brutal, at first ignoring any attempt at connection then accusations of abuse, even rape. Rape. This being flung from the quiet din of her parent’s protective home in the quiet of the basement. The weakness of it making me ill beyond reason, the faithlessness of the projection a bold, clear and present lie to what it means to be called to action and left. To give in to ultimate selfishness from the utter center of self focused existence which we had been living. Which we all mostly live. Stupidity frees you from any responsibility. Buttercup at this moment lay dying, her cancer having spread so rapidly as to astound even the most conservative accounts of the disease’ progress. I sent what I could and awaited a response which came as a brief and beautifully written email. This will be the final correspondence and a good one though I think, each day, I will look for something more as I had always looked. Still the finality of her fate and the real and sustained connection we had will drive its beating heart into the soil with the rest to the river. There is nothing more to be said though I think at any moment I will be on a plane to Detroit and in a car up through the frozen north along Huron. If only there were unlimited resources. If only there were more choices.