you are made of ocean

March 11th, 2018 Dearest Annika,

I hope this letter finds you well. Do tell me, everything, how have you been?

Forgive the delay in this correspondence, I haven’t been still much lately. It’s been too tempting to spend as many hours possible outside soaking up the last of the chill and crisp before the leaves change and there will be neither to be found for a while. Where writing’s failed me, there’s been plenty of reading to be had with several new paper cuts and worn spines to prove it. The closest town to here is small and full of businesses that have been pinned to the same family name for decades. Their library’s no different, but has provided some rare gems nonetheless. It is strange to call this place history when my memories are so few and far between of it truly being so, but it certainly feels familiar to the senses. It’s like a language I learned as a child and then abandoned furthermore. My comprehension is fragmentary, but there are certain accents to the environment that I can’t help but recognize. There is one long road that cuts down the middle of Cave Junction, but just a little ways to the right there’s a stretch of forest so dense, anything in a rush coming or going fades away. Here, especially, where I am on the land closest to the riverside there’s an ongoing sound of silence in the air, devoid of city sirens or busied manmade interruption, as if I’ve caught the world off guard at 5 in the morning. The air smells of cedar needles and woodsmoke. Though it feels like the first time I’ve been in this part of Oregon, part of me has embraced this land like a long overdue reacquaintance. I could get used to it long term if it didn’t lack quite an important component that doesn’t exist here.

I was tempted to try and call you over the phone, but couldn’t risk the chance of waking you up at the wrong time. Sleep is precious ( though I must confess I have not been any better at ending my late evenings with the moon at a reasonable early hour ). Besides, I must admit a partiality to this style of communication —- writing you. It falls a close second place to the alternative. Too rare are physically sent letters and gifts these days. Mind, I’ve never had an address worthy enough for it to make sense to send or receive such things before. On the outside of this envelope I chose the stamp with a picture of the coastline here on it because it reminded me of you. The rocky cliffs and the waves, the ebb and flow of wise and falls; infinite beginnings and endings. At the very least, I suppose in sending this I’m giving the people at the empty post office a reason to get up in the morning. Or maybe that’s not something to be celebrated, if it means I’ve interrupted their rest and forced them head to work and deal with a girl’s sentimental flyaway heart. But I digress…

It’s strange to to think about how many miles there are between us now again. In a way, it feels as though we never parted from visit in December. I have taken care of the gifts you’ve given me, all of them tucked close by. Records are played often in your honor. Table tops have been spared tea ring stains, much to the delight of artisanal reclaimed wood carpenters everywhere. In another way, absence is all I feel. Still. The quiet, the coolness of solitary. It’s peculiarly noticeable. This is how it has been these past couple of years yet, in beginning this recovery again, it doesn’t feel like a sustainable rhythm. I think it might have to do with how full this house is. There’s always someone around, voices calling up and down stairs, different people’s belongings strung about. It’s organized chaos, to say the least. I cannot complain, even though is feels I’m on the outskirts of an inside joke much of the time I do linger in the communal living room or kitchen with these various distant relatives I’ve never met before. Intriguing as this new chapter of rediscovering old roots is, I am grateful for the personal space they’ve allocated me —- it’s away from the crowded hubbub and nestled at the fringe of the garden ( a real one! no plastic impostors here, you’ll be happy to know ) at the back of the property, about half a mile from the main house. I believe you’d love it —- it’s a cottage overflowing with charming personality and character. Though the structure’s been renovated into a lovely self-sufficient studio space in the inside, it’s been beautifully preserved on the outside. Almost all original brick. Various lengths of fallen cedar branches, from a storm that blew through here years ago, were sanded down and glazed to embellish the outer edges of the door frame and stained glass window panes. Small and particularly gnarled pieces were turned into handles for the drawers in the kitchenette. A wall of windows faces east, where I can watch the sunrise from bed. Dawn is always brings about a spike of icy coldness, no amount of layers is enough to hide from it all too well. By most afternoons it’s mild again; the skies wonderfully clear. As soon as the first rays of golden light filter into this makeshift cottage ‘home’ of mine, the world is colored warmed and honeyed again and I can feel the cusp of spring has arrived.

I dearly hope to see you again sometime in the future. I did promise myself I’d travel back to Europe and Sweden one day, and I do intend to make good on that claim ( and now it’s officially been written down —- so you can be my witness hold me to it! ) Certainly your presence alone is quite the fine excuse to do so, more than any Eiffel or canal or mountainous venture attracts me to revisit.

Tell me what you’ve been doing with your time over there —- or anything whatsoever. You could write out the instructions to a recipe for toast or the stages of a grass seed’s growth and I would indulgently peruse your penmanship for hours. Though the sound of your voice is most definitely still the most preferred and refreshing expression you convey. Tied with that smile.

Missing you my dear friend. May we reunite soon.

Caleb, it’s a pleasure.

I think the home is the perfect place to not have to follow what “good taste” is. It’s a place for you, after all, so why not have it be a reflection of exactly what it is you represent? Though I see the appeal trendy decor and such, but it’d be hypocritical of me to say that one should leave the task to an actual designer when my home is littered with trinkets that I’ve collected over the years. They’re special to me, though I don’t think many people would be as quick to place a tacky Swedish gnome on their mantle.

A bit of both, I suppose. I’m sure I could scrape up a photo somewhere.

A tacky Swedish gnome? I might have one or two Swedish Tomte Dolls myself —- things received from my grandmother. Though the mantle isn’t where they’re kept in my home. I agree with your opinions on home decor though, and I think my tastes for design right now are reflected as such in my home. Ever since moving out to California I’ve been in admiration of Colonial Spanish interiors and exteriors, and that’s my current design and decor. So your’s is eclectic? Do you pick up things when you see something you like and fit it in?

Adventure is where my heart is, I don’t know why I like to wander but I just do. It’s fun though, I like seeing the world and finding places where I wouldn’t have thought to tread. Well, I send her them if I wander off again - it was always a ‘Hey, I’m still alive’ thing and she gets that through phone calls now.

I’ve been published actually! Written a few, though some that I will never let leave my laptop but I keep for prosperity. Ah, it’s a good dream! The last thing I wrote was a retelling of the Little Mermaid, I’m quite proud of it.

Adventure and wanderlust doesn’t need a reason or explanation in my opinion. I think it’s a large part of human nature to seek, and travel and exploration offer answers and resolutions —- sometimes to questions and problems we didn’t know we had. Mostly I believe they offer knowledge and experience. I like, or love the very same in seeing the world and places to tread. Oh, I’m sure she prefers the phone calls and getting to hear your voice.

Me too. Sounds like this was meant to be. You wanna make a regular hangout of this, I won’t say no. I’m not saying no to a new, regular friend, and some good food. Don’t worry, it takes a whole hell of a lot to scare me off from a solid request. You’ve got yourself a new friend. You might regret this later.

From Boston. Miss it already, or most of it. I’m the bane of everyone’s existence. No use in denying it. I can own up to what I am, and I don’t mind. I’m a troublemaker/pain in the ass. Just ask around. They’ll all confirm it.

Oh, I doubt this would be something to regret at any point —- even if you are attempting to point to the possibility that you’re trouble of some sort. Everyone has a story, and most everyone is worth getting to know. There’s nothing for you to be afraid of though, I can’t seem to hold friends or connections as it is showing itself to me like trying to hold water in my hands but I don’t think I do anything in particular to scare anyone off. I will try harder, especially since we have to eat good food right?

Wait a sec… you crashed a Ferrari? I know there’s gotta be a helluva a reason or story behind that… I hadn’t heard about that sorta thing but it’s best we didn’t know each other back then. I’d call it wild tho dependin’ on the reason. I go to car meets every now then here if ya ever wanna come and relive any of that a bit. Are ya missin’ ya father a bit? You’re mentionin’ him much more than ever before. Well that right there is why you’re the perfect girl… cars, real food… so let’s run on and get a bite and go for a drive.

You’re right, I’m sure it was for the best —- you had a difficult life of survival while my struggles were very different. I was raised in a materialistic world, much more intense than the consumerism that plagues our nation, and people could and often were bought by things and/or money. I hated it and it bothered me so much that others saw me as something for purchase, in one way or another. A friend or colleague of my fathers bought the sports car and gifted it to me as a push to date him. I’ll remind you that I was sixteen. So I totaled it to let him know how I felt about that, and looking back I see the teenage rebel but I could’ve handled that better. I think I’ve done far wilder things in my adult life.

I would enjoy going to some car meets with you. Are they a cars and coffee type of deal? I think I’m always missing my family to some degree, but yes, my father and I were close, I just don’t know how to reconcile.

I’ve been lucky, and I got to travel places with my parents when I was younger, but I would like to go to Australia, and Japan. Those are probably my top two. Maybe I’ll get to see what you find beautiful about your location too, though. I’m really up for going anywhere and seeing anything. I’m still hoping that some day we’ll be able to really officially change the game with all of that. Then maybe we won’t be seeing entire species fade away.

I’m self aware of that bit of me at the very least. My parents and I don’t have the best relationship, but I have to try. I’m their last living child, so there’s no use in shutting them out when we are where we are because they don’t know how to cope with the same loss that I also haven’t found a way to deal with. It’s been over ten years and I’m still shit at handling it. So if I’m shit at handling my sister’s death, can’t blame them for the same thing. At least I know where I got my inability to cope appropriately. We don’t get up to much, just kind of spending time in the same space, and being really awkward. They always think they want to see my face, then they see me and I think I bring a lot of bad memories along when I’m around. It never goes the way one expects.

Don’t think I’d ever considered cats. Maybe I should. They’re cute, even if they kind of do their own thing.

We share that in common. I, too, was able to travel and explore quite a lot with accompanying my parents on trips. Is there a place you traveled in childhood that stands out to you still to this day? One that you remember more than the others? Australia and Japan, very good choices, though I have hardly spent anytime in Japan but its an incredible and beautiful culture —- very unique. I hope you get a chance to see Kenya, or any part of Africa really. It’s a place and land that needs to be seen and experienced, and I realize that comes from a bias I have given all the time and places I’ve been to within the continent. I’m just never not amazed by something, and it help me to feel alive at times when I couldn’t recognize that on my own. I hope the conservation of species and land grows and improves as well. Definitely a dream of mine I would like to see through.

I’m so very sorry for your loss. Grief can take a long time to make our way through, and if I could share my favorite quote regarding it, by Vicki Harrison —-

Grief is like the ocean; it comes on waves ebbing and flowing. Sometimes the water is calm, and sometimes it is overwhelming. All we can do is learn to swim.

There’s some losses I don’t think we ever get over, we simply carry them with us through the rest of life. Are the bad memories your appearance brings because you and your sister look so much alike? Looking into your eyes makes them remember looking into hers? At least you’re able to try and be around each other. I’m not sure my parents and I will ever reach that place.