Dear Will,
Regarding your last correspondence: yes, I would be willing to look into that for you. It may take some time but I’ll begin when I return and update you with my progress as we get along into it.
I am sorry to hear about your July. As I said in my last: keep to the centre. I should like to tell you I had a poor month also, but the truth is that I had a rather decent time resting over here. The lights are lovely at night, and I can watch the weal of the whole cosmos as it turns about the Earth. It has brought me comfort to know that they are the same stars that look upon thee and thine. I hope S. is among them. I feel I feel her there when I gaze heavenwards, even though I can never see her. It is difficult to be separated from the ones you love. I know this in a hollow, hope-void way. The bright air does me well, and I will be a bit sad to return. This has been a needed vacation.
When I consider you, I am a bit distraught. I care for you and I hate to see the frustration you’ve come upon this last while (and of course I mean the last While). It’s no one’s fault, I think. Just Frenemy Fate twisting in austere and unchallengeable ways. I’m glad you are writing again more, though. It was a silence, unbearable, your absence. Even the Wolf was concerned, though they’d never admit it. I knew you’d come around, but I didn’t think there’d be a river of so many rocks to catch upon. Ain’t that the way? As for your Guilt, you concern yourself too much with the past, love. Action is immediate. What has passed has its burden but it need not cloud your presence. And here is your presence: today, now. You have done poorly? Good; then, do better today. Do you think you are alone in guilt? You share a host with the greatest saints and cruelest sinners of Earth. The Path has been steep, rocky, but it is not impassable. I am here, too.
Two months ago I had a slip up. I care not for the details here as I am sure something in my words would belay my meaning. Language is a fickle thing, and letters are not always the best spaces for exploring our love & suffering. Gone are the days of good clarity between like minds. Nonetheless, it is an awful thing to feel so suddenly dismembered from a core distension of your peace & being. That is a burdensome sentence but I think you will know what I mean. There is another kind of Knowing in solitude, though. I have found in my time thence that slip up that I am engaged in myself more than ever I have been. I’ve observed you going through much the same: something there is in solitude that identity loves loving. And the Lord know there is much to be learned in loving.
Just recall: Love is not loving. To paraphrase your philosophy: Do your work and then return. I will soon return also. There is a place between the furrows of being where we find some respite, but it is not there that we are living. It is yon, where nature plays with itself and the animals are all tired. That is where we belong. Home is a nebulous definition of a place where we return to ourselves. If that is in solitude, it is alone we find ourselves. If it is amongst the masses, then it is with them that we find ourselves. Neither is Home, but the dim-lit walkway leading to the porch of our childhood. An opportunity to return. I hope this journey is soon ending. The walkway is longer than I remember and I would like to be Home a little while. Wherever that truly is.
May God be with you, love. May all your tomorrows be days. May all your nights end mercifully. I love you, and I will see you when I see you.
let not our mercy be disrupted by the un-mercy of our allies let not the cold apathy of our truth be distended from the sweet delusion of living
Your quiet redeemer, — Willa Beale
p.s. btw don’t hate me but could you just make this my diary ii? love you
p.p.s. i believe ‘my love is no filthy thing’ was scheduled for the day I’m writing this to you; how was it? i didn’t like some of the lines but loved the ones i did like. sometimes it’s good to just get some bullshit out, you know? this is avant gauche