Do ferns have dreams?

A letter to a dead friend.

Dear friend,

In the face of recent events, I decided to visit home, meaning the exact place I was born. Curiosity got the best of me, even though I know such reminiscences very rarely end well for me, as I tend to fall into a spiral of overthinking.

But can you blame me, at my ripe age, for nostalgia? As a human, I am doomed to commit the same mistakes without learning until it bites me in the ass.

I was pleasantly surprised to discover a meadow with an orchard where my house once stood. (Or at least where I think it stood.) I expected more urban development in the place, not a bunch of apple trees and a sea of grass, but I am not complaining. It's nice to rest my ancient bones in the shadow of an apple tree once in a while.

It is a strangely unbothered patch of land, which didn’t help with the nostalgia. It felt familiar. It lingered on the verge of my memories, almost tangible, but not quite. So close, yet too far away to reach. I thought I would feel better and that my visit would soothe my pain and longing for comfort and home. But it left me even more broken and regretful.

With all that lingering familiarity, it felt strangely cold and foreign. Surreal even. At first, I couldn’t exactly put my finger on what bothered me so much. And then it hit me. The feeling of belonging was gone. I have simply forgotten all of it—the people that used to live here, their daily problems and squabbles, and myself in the middle of that. I forgot what I was doing here, hence the strange feeling of a loss. I just couldn’t remember myself in this place. As if I've never been here.

I'm old. I'm very, very old. And I keep forgetting more and more details from my past. Every memory I lose devastates me to the core. I don't remember my mother's, Eleanor's, or Peggy's faces. It's all jumbled and smudged in my memory. It's like I'm in a fog, which grows thicker as I stumble through it. I don't even remember my mother's voice or her sweet lullaby that I used to hum all the time. To keep myself from forgetting. But it happened eventually.

But that doesn't scare me the most; what scares me the most is that I don't recognise the world I once called home. It's all familiar, but I don't have the feeling of belonging. I don't feel alienated, just... alien. Immortality is the best thing that could have happened to me, but human memory is limited. I'm doomed to live forever... And forget. And what are we if not memories? This is what makes me "me". I'm not even sure my real name is Robert at this point. I just remember using it, but since when? Who knows. Am I even the same person now? Or maybe I forgot completely who I was and turned into a stranger. Will I remember this in a thousand years? Five thousand? Those questions scare me. I am scared to lose myself.

I am afraid, dear friend, that I will forget you too, one day. I will fight tooth and nail not to, but as experience has taught me, it will happen eventually. It saddens me deeply, and I know thinking about it is senseless now, but I cannot help it, as from everything I’ve experienced and everyone I’ve met, you’re the one I wish to remember most, for as long as I can.

Dear friend, this letter might never reach you, but if it does, keep in mind that I will be waiting for you for as long as it takes and for as long as I remember. I will be there, anticipating our meetings, until I grow so old that you will have to remind me of what I am waiting for. Promise me that.

Your friend,

Robert

Big shoutout to my friend who not only checked the letter for me, but also did a recording if it, check it out please: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QUKTmfK_Sz0

And who would have thought, that this little project will actually end up signed by the actors. A long way I went.

It was a goodnight show, because I couldn't sleep, then it was a great story, that I started to read, and then it was a new found inspiration because I couldn't draw, and it gave me a reason to do so after years of stagnation, and then it was a new found family, made up of strangers and weirdos, that made me whole and happy, then it was adventure and traveling and meeting up all of the people that somehow found a way to my heart because one evening, on random, I decided to watch The Sandman.

A letter to a dead friend.

Dear friend,

In the face of recent events, I decided to visit home, meaning the exact place I was born. Curiosity got the best of me, even though I know such reminiscences very rarely end well for me, as I tend to fall into a spiral of overthinking.

But can you blame me, at my ripe age, for nostalgia? As a human, I am doomed to commit the same mistakes without learning until it bites me in the ass.

I was pleasantly surprised to discover a meadow with an orchard where my house once stood. (Or at least where I think it stood.) I expected more urban development in the place, not a bunch of apple trees and a sea of grass, but I am not complaining. It's nice to rest my ancient bones in the shadow of an apple tree once in a while.

It is a strangely unbothered patch of land, which didn’t help with the nostalgia. It felt familiar. It lingered on the verge of my memories, almost tangible, but not quite. So close, yet too far away to reach. I thought I would feel better and that my visit would soothe my pain and longing for comfort and home. But it left me even more broken and regretful.

With all that lingering familiarity, it felt strangely cold and foreign. Surreal even. At first, I couldn’t exactly put my finger on what bothered me so much. And then it hit me. The feeling of belonging was gone. I have simply forgotten all of it—the people that used to live here, their daily problems and squabbles, and myself in the middle of that. I forgot what I was doing here, hence the strange feeling of a loss. I just couldn’t remember myself in this place. As if I've never been here.

I'm old. I'm very, very old. And I keep forgetting more and more details from my past. Every memory I lose devastates me to the core. I don't remember my mother's, Eleanor's, or Peggy's faces. It's all jumbled and smudged in my memory. It's like I'm in a fog, which grows thicker as I stumble through it. I don't even remember my mother's voice or her sweet lullaby that I used to hum all the time. To keep myself from forgetting. But it happened eventually.

But that doesn't scare me the most; what scares me the most is that I don't recognise the world I once called home. It's all familiar, but I don't have the feeling of belonging. I don't feel alienated, just... alien. Immortality is the best thing that could have happened to me, but human memory is limited. I'm doomed to live forever... And forget. And what are we if not memories? This is what makes me "me". I'm not even sure my real name is Robert at this point. I just remember using it, but since when? Who knows. Am I even the same person now? Or maybe I forgot completely who I was and turned into a stranger. Will I remember this in a thousand years? Five thousand? Those questions scare me. I am scared to lose myself.

I am afraid, dear friend, that I will forget you too, one day. I will fight tooth and nail not to, but as experience has taught me, it will happen eventually. It saddens me deeply, and I know thinking about it is senseless now, but I cannot help it, as from everything I’ve experienced and everyone I’ve met, you’re the one I wish to remember most, for as long as I can.

Dear friend, this letter might never reach you, but if it does, keep in mind that I will be waiting for you for as long as it takes and for as long as I remember. I will be there, anticipating our meetings, until I grow so old that you will have to remind me of what I am waiting for. Promise me that.

Your friend,

Robert

Big shoutout to my friend who not only checked the letter for me, but also did a recording if it, check it out please: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QUKTmfK_Sz0

And who would have thought, that this little project will actually end up signed by the actors. A long way I went.

It was a goodnight show, because I couldn't sleep, then it was a great story, that I started to read, and then it was a new found inspiration because I couldn't draw, and it gave me a reason to do so after years of stagnation, and then it was a new found family, made up of strangers and weirdos, that made me whole and happy, then it was adventure and traveling and meeting up all of the people that somehow found a way to my heart because one evening, on random, I decided to watch The Sandman.

I´m an agglomeration of uniform color shapes, You are a composition of several lines