Attempt at communication

The first thing I did the morning of my first day back at home was to stare at my bookshelf. I pulled out a copy of Josephine Jacobsen's collected poems which I bought at a cheap price in Cambridge, Massachusetts a few years ago, and read one poem about a mad raccoon fed, and then shot, by a boy, two poems in which the earth was red, one poem that begins with "It's a cold night," and some others I don't recall. Memory, or lack thereof, has always been my weakness. But even worse has been the putting down of words , the construction of sentences and paragraphs. Writing has become increasingly difficult when I need most to write, when I need most to memorialize what will inevitably change in my life, and fade, and lose all its magic. For lack of memory, we are all very poor. And so we write, or try to.

And that is why I haven't been able to answer a single of your questions. Because every time, the words were insufficient for the reality of the three-dimensional, and I have come to realize that our telling of it will determine how it is, to ourselves most of all. So I didn't want to ruin the good with bad telling, and I didn't want to tell anything when I was untruthful. And in the end I became so afraid that no words would come at all. Were you here with me, things would have been better. But you're a hemisphere away in a place where it's winter, and I can't see you, or your reactions, which is all I normally need for an assurance of you being there and me existing--the safety of accurate perception. What I mean is, when you're here in person, I am not so afraid.

One thing China forced me to acknowledge: I have called many people my "friends" too lightly, because I have not spent enough time considering what "friendship" is. This summer I befriended a girl. I was angry for her when she was wronged. I was not only angry for her, I pissed off my boss being angry for her. I thought, I am her friend, so I am willing to make sacrifices for her and since she asked me to help, I did in the only small way I could. Down to it though, what the matter was about was justice, and a month's salary. I was a fool, because I still sway between extremes (there's always that knot in my chest waiting to explode, or contract into a black hole). When I came home, my mother reminded me of the need for humility. What I should have remembered is that true justice is beyond our reach here, and even if righteous indignation is a legitimate response to injustice, the conviction that we can really change things (say, by giving authority the middle finger) is nothing more than hubris, and profane. Besides, no one is innocent, and all we can really do to love people is to point them to Christ. For this, we might be thanked, or we might also suffer the condemnation that we are administering the disease instead of the cure, or the accusation that we don't love at all, because love has nothing to do with God.

But the point is, I didn't understand what friendship is. Sometimes, we're used innocently, sometimes not. I'll never know what the case was--I can only try to hope all things, eventually--but this summer taught me the uneasy feeling that there are many sweet talkers out there who taste better than they are. I trust too much, because I have been well loved. But China was a wake-up call to lose some naivety, some adolescent self-righteousness. And it was also a reminder of the fact that I'm not a good friend myself.