Letters
Every day brings a ship,
Every ship brings a word;
Well for those who have no fear,
Looking seaward, well assured
That the word the vessel brings
Is the word they wish to hear.
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882)
I just picked the book up and it immediately fell open at that page. Really. It's not a particularly well-thumbed volume, and I don't recall ever reading that poem before. It's a rather unsettling coincidence.
It's hard to keep in touch with 'back home' from here. I have already complained often - too often - about my difficulties with the telephone and the Internet. Most of the time, however, I do just about manage to keep in touch with people back home by these means. My family, however - well, it just doesn't seem to work between me and them. All we have are letters - and we're all too goddamn lazy ever to write letters any more. A letter.... these days a letter only comes as a last resort, in some dire emergency. A letter is a harbinger of disaster.
Yesterday I got a letter from home. For the first time in...... well, since I've been out here, I think. I was immediately afraid to open it.
I was right to be afraid. The news it contained was not good. Very bad, in fact. Unimaginably appalling. Sorry, I do not wish to write about this here - but I am pretty fucked up, and I fear this is likely to prevent or severely curtail my blogging for the next little while.
Please bear with me. I will do my best to keep on trucking - but it is hard, very hard.
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