My Love,
Well I never thought I’d be saved by Toledo that’s for sure, but I’ve been wrong before.
The museum sticks with me, lingers in my mind. Remember how the director said to us, “people come here to visit their friends.” I keep think about that. A museum promises such stability. To know that whenever you go there you can pass into a climate controlled environment where the lush strokes of Rembrandt, the blinking TV screens of Nam June Paik and will be there waiting for you with their own fragile lifespans—different from yours but overlapping for as many times as you choose to visit.
I want to spend the rest of my life with you. I can’t help it, despite everything. I want to be the painting to your person—that piece that you sit down in front of every Saturday and contemplate in relation to your own life. I want you to be that for for me. I want to be your Juan Miró dreamscape and for you to be my ancient basalt torso.
I combined your photos with mine for the blog. I hope that’s OK. But our time here together felt like another world where we tried to reconcile something I’m not saying we did. I’m saying we tried as hard as we could. That piece, “be afraid of the enormity of the possible, “ keeps puling in my mind. Where are we going? I’ve been with you partly on the premise that I wouldn’t look too far forward or too far back. It turns out that kind of presence can be excruciating. The longer a relationship goes on the easier it gets to peer into the future. You think, “i knew what the last year has been so why wouldn’t I know what the next one will be?” I don’t want to live that way. To clamp down on you, on us. But I do want to hold onto something. and especially with what happend with M. I wonder if when I sign up with you, I’m signing up for the possibility of that happening again.
The air in Cleveland has gotten cooler. We’re on the fast train to December now. Where will we be at Christmas? Will you have changed to me when I get off the plane? I guess if I can commit to art I can commit to you in all you aging, peeling, steady glory. What’s that that N always quotes?
“Never take it seriously
If you never take it seriously
you never get hurt
if you never get hurt you always have fun
and if you ever get lonely
just go to the record store
and visit your friends.”
I always take it seriously, but the museum is my record store.
Love,
K
