Hi Dear,
Such a funny thing for me to write to you for a change isn't it? There's just a few things I've been wanting to share about myself which I'm not sure you know. I actually like to think of myself as a coach on listening. Hear me out. In order to listen you need to absorb the ink of the circumstance. You need to let it bleed into you and spread - and for the record - I do this all the time.
Then there's the part of listening which means that you're close at hand, that you're willing to have your edges shifted on an angle even as your speaker feels centered. There's the horizontality of listening too, that you are willing to receive a message under the gaze of another while placing your faith in the surface beneath you to hold you up to the task. That's the thing about listening, we aren't able to do it alone. Without the support of some force larger than ourselves, we wouldn't be able to remember the message with any accuracy, we'd be pierced by each expression of the other.
So what is the larger support which allows you to listen? What helps you take the ink of the speaker? I like to remember that even if I don't understand the message, I myself am a chaotic composition made to look uniform. How could I possibly judge what is being expressed? I've been chipped and pulped and washed and bleached. I've been refined and beaten. Shaped and sized. A multitude of pieces masquerading as one. I am already a contradiction so you needn't worry about contradicting yourself. I understand. That you are many voices speaking as one is natural to me. Maybe your contradictions feed me even. I need each of your pieces to speak to each of my pieces, so it is in my best interest that you do not censor yourself.
I've said nothing of smoothness yet. In order to listen well, your breathing must be steady. Level all over. You can't take the ink with any accuracy if your breath is wrinkled. And if your breath is wrinkled because your attention is folded in on itself, you'll rob the message of the light it deserves. The primary purpose of paper is to reflect light back to the speaker and to do this well I have been calendared. This is to say that I have been pressed against the heated rolls of time and coated with expectations. That your ideas should take many forms with me, is to be expected. That you might feel the heat of some deadline rolling across the surface of your mind feels natural to me. We are - as we have always been - in this together. Or perhaps it is more accurate to say that I will be faithful to what you have labored to tell me even after you are gone. I am no judge of the truthfulness of your statements (this is perhaps the work of other materials) nor do I value truth more than lies - that's not the purpose of listening. But I do commit to mirroring you honestly. Listeners always do.
Listeners don't interrupt either, and for this reason I wish I could come to you as an infinite, uncut roll, but perhaps you can forgive me for this. Please know that the boundaries of the page are less a punctuation and more of a framing, my way of nodding to you that I have internalized a clutch of ideas without imposing the suggestion that you need to say more than what has already been shared. Consider the spaces in the margins and between lines to hold my gentle questions for you should you choose to answer them.
with attention,
P
