Re: Baskin/Robbins
[Hand-drawn, although not by the sender. The eggs are shaded in soft chalk pastel that will stain the recipient’s fingers. The card comes nestled in a light gray envelope, with an extra scrap of paper:]
Is it strange that I find it so easy to write to you? You’re sort of like a diary, but far superior — you aren’t just a result of my projecting onto you that which I think I want to hear. There’s both an accountability and a freedom. It’s rather refreshing.
I think it’s sweet that you’re the sort of person to worry about a sad plant. I’ll be sure to check on it again with a cup of water, and maybe move it somewhere it might get more sun. Tell it a funny limerick, or something. I have hope. Not any extraordinary amount of it. I didn’t use to, but I realized that finding it in the dark corners of the world was the only way I would ever move on with my life.
I don’t have a problem with religion as long as it isn’t used to hurt people. There are some types of faith that fascinate me. The Southern Baptists’ music with their electric organs and choirs that actually embody joy. Taoist monks who know the importance of feeling the earth under their bare feet every day, feeling connected to the ground and the grass and the roots of trees. But as with everything, there is so much darkness in how religion is interpreted and used by humans that repels me from the idea. I know that might sound petty, given that I was just complaining about my family’s practices of faith just being boring. But I can’t help but wonder if the world wouldn’t be a better place without the man-made rules of how to be faithful at the expense of compassion and empathy.
Nice to know we share in an immature humor. Perhaps you’re the one in need of a limerick, although for you I suppose I’d try to make it a dirty one, Robbins.
New starts are inevitable, no? Each morning is one. Each death, and breakup, and broken bone. Every painful notch in our proverbial belts gives us the chance to see the world through eyes that have seen that much more. I guess that’s part of where my hope comes from. Where do you find hope in your world, Robbins? Perhaps you’ll inspire me.
Being porridge sounds dreadful. Unless I get to be drizzled in honey, with slivered almonds and cinnamon. Which would possibly attract the three bears and result in the four of us being all stuck together into one porridge/bear Megazord… yes, I can say with confidence that my answer is definitely porridge Megazord. (There’s a sentence I’ll bet you never expected to read in a letter.)