love letters from my 34th summer

My old school college friend and compatriot, Quincy Thomas, has just written a funny account of his experience at a conference for Game Stop managers held in Dallas, Texas. I’m not really much of a gamer, which I assume you have to be to manage a Game Stop, but I did enjoy his account. It’s a whole world I never knew existed, and he guides us through it fearlessly and even introduces us to Peter Jackson, Colin Quinn, Tony Hawk, and lots of hot girls.

Quincy and I used to co-write plays and other nonsense, while we were eating breakfast, when we were in college together. Now he is married, lives in Minnesota, and we never talk. But, I still got nothing but love for the Q. Also while you are over there, check out his story about going to a Renaissance Festival…funny stuff too.

Note: This was written exactly three years ago this month. If I sounded overly optimistic, that’s because I was. But looking back, overly optimistic seems just about right. I’m not really one to be self-conscience about feeling happy. This is written to my best friend, Mike Rhoades. Enjoy.

My Brutha,

How we doin’? Me? I’m feeling pretty good. Why? Last night, your friend and fellow genius took life by the horns and didn’t let go until he fell asleep with a beautiful Kevin-Spacey-kind-of- smile. Want to hear about my complete night? Here goes.

Well, last night was a Wednesday night, which means prayer meeting at church, which means a big block of my night spoken for, thus kind of hurting my chances at the perfect evening. Well, that’s what you would think. Right?

But, my friend, things are not always what you or I would think. And that’s the down right amazing, wonderful part about life that has me giddy this cool breezy morning while I look out my open front door at work at trees that sway, but not all together or all in the same direction. The sun is hitting the leaves, too, this morning, but not all of them. I can’t figure out which are more beautiful, those that the sun has remembered or those that have been forgotten. No, its neither…it’s seeing it all together, lit and unlit, on this fine September morning. God is alive surely.

But I digress. For this morning is not the subject of this clandestine letter (I’m writing you from work), but last night is what I want to tell you about.

He was moving along quickly in the thick, dripping forest, and all the sounds were his. His breaths were rhythmic and wrenching, and his feet were pounding to the quick, scant beats of his heart. All the sounds were his, and now he was remembering.

Gnats were tickling his neck and sticking to the hair matted against his ears. His skin was shiny and slick from sweat and from the rain drenched oak leaves, mountain laurel and ferns that slapped his legs, torso, and arms, from time to time, mixing the moisture. So, arms raised, elbows out, he slid through the green while thinking about a white-haired lady with blue, blue eyes. He hadn’t seen her in three years. He and his memories were free to wander in the woods. So they did. (more…)

“It is quite true that Americans value democracy It is quite false that they value liberty. Whole sects and societies [of Americans] would treat tobacco not merely as a poison but as a sort of infernal drug invented by demons. All the American virtues and vices mingle in this national instinct for persecution. It has the democratic spirit, in the spontaneous movement of the masses. It has the optimistic spirit, in the facile faith in the result of a new law or regulation. But to say that it has the spirit of individual liberty is claptrap.” GK Chesterton, 1923.

“The man who is silly enough to say, when offered a cigarette, ‘I have no vices,’ may not always deserve the rapier-thrust of the reply given by the Italian Cardinal, ‘It is not a vice, or doubtless you would have it.’” GK Chesterton, 1923

I know many who’ve lived in China probably come home and blame some strange new quirk or tick on China. I can see that expat now– suddenly having this urge to always squat when he goes to the bathroom—his roommate wondering why there are now footprints on the toilet seat. Or maybe his table etiquette is suddenly lacking—he sticks the bowl directly under his nose and scrapes the food in his mouth, pausing from time to time to spit the bones on the floor.

So, as I say this, I say it with a certain amount of guilt. Ultimately, I’m responsible for my own decisions and my own actions. I gladly own up to this. But what I am about to say is the truth. China enabled my smoking addiction. There. After typing it, I like the way it looks on paper. China did not cause me to keep smoking cigarettes. But China is the reason I started. It’s true, and these are the facts.