Dear M-,
how are you? & the family? its still winter in amerika i know the weather hasn’t been too good. still working hard? life’s a bitch aint it. (i only ask the standard questions in the usual manner to still the rumblings of a hungry conscience) this is not a love letter, u may consider it as a message from a fire hydrant to a dog.
who am i? u don't know me tho u touch me daily do u see me? i am among the faceless friends u use & abuse so easily. why Oi write u now rather than my mother or a distant lover, i'll never know...but u need me- u need to hear from me. u are locked in the closet of your life, chained to a narrow perspective. your world is confined to the space between your ears, u feel but have no feelings yet u'll never realize a little pain never hurt anyone! can u relate? can u relate to me? u are emotionally parlyzed & suffer lonliness to be your only friend. midnight cries leave u sleepless. love peers into your dreams & hears your shuttered screams. u peek from darkness into deeper darkness, blind, fearing to open your mind. other realities exist - u are special but not different. u scream & the echoes deafen u, u cry & drownd your dammed blues in shallow turbulence. open ur mind & let yourself out.
are your screams any different than mine? cannot the fears & ecstacies i feel be as real as surreal fantasies u scream and cry? laugh-tears invade the sacred manor of existence. sharing joy and pain is the creation of an epoxy that blinds people together. i jump thru the windows of your eyes, i scream & cry. my eyes bleed. my blood, being tears - u don't see them. my tears, being mine, u don't see them. laughter is dark behind holes, minds crawling their pits. your soul is barren as hard rock, yet i pity u not. i pity your lack of compassion for anyone but yourself. you could take a broken heart & show the world there is love in it & your wounds would heal themselves. u suffer at ur own risk. u could always park a smile nearby for a quick getaway. being so in love with urself, how can u love someone else? love is not a quicksand to fall into...love is warm bed to crawl into...or more...or less than that. what is love? love is??? love is not being alone. love is! alone i think of such things...
still action creates a motion of its own. alone. river wisdom rhetoric denies everything, excepting cliches, doubting its existence, accepting all social truth as relative (but never family) - does this sound familiar? if i rob kaufman, solitudes are crowded with lonliness...but what did u expect? so are most relationships. to be alone is to bear the brunt of your soul's burden, a heavy blue thing. who can stand the red night pulsing of themselves, the pressures of blood thoughts not projecting seldom used emotions that have abused the right to be expressed.
i could let u into my personal me & u could trample across the heady vastness that confines wish-rides & heaven dealt dreams of a virgin land. there are some secrets that i'm afraid to admit myself. who are u to expect the truth from one who dreams lies so eavesdroppers won't misinterpret my reality? i am not happy...i know this. & i milk life for happiness it reveals. u are not happy...u believe this. yet u hate life for happiness it conceals. even the complete orgasms of love or sex (or love of sex) cannot erase the miseries of human beings or illuminate the mysteries of being humun. i am not an apostle of light nor will i be mercenary to darkness...yet i will not invite u into my rainbo vision.
u keep ur problems, i have my own!
love & kisses,
kamau
_________________________________________________________________

Dear M-,*
don't be shocked. i have called so much but a line from the last letter haunts me "reach out & touch. feel a soul respond. a sharing, a caring.” i wonder can i still do that?
again, another drought, ending & beginning. it has been too long since i last wrote. many seasons, many changes. i have children now. the world has gotten so much smaller, & bigger, too. hypermediation, the computer, digital technologies force us apart. with so much information overload, we now know less about each other. hurt beyond caring, driven to a fruitless sharing. the pop psych shows promote a naked pain, baring secrets, not bearing secrets, so that folks now really do live in glass houses, the glass of their tv & computer screens, the glass in their autos & limousines. bombarded with so much pain--no news is good news, it's just entertainment, like oprah, geraldo, jerry & sally. frontally assaulted by reality programming, flanked by violence, sex, insanity & inanity, caressed by infomercials selling us shit we don't need, telling us in so many words we are not good enough--but can be for four easy payments of 39.95 plus shipping & handling (three if you call now & put it on your credit card) we retreat into jaded shells, snails nailed into cloistered unconsciousnesses. not conscious of ourselves, not conscious of others. blinded by material pursuits, seeing everything, knowing nothing. seeking riches, not richness, buying everything, owning nothing. the more things change, the more they stay the same. millions in society spending billions on self improvement, meanwhile the quality of life deteriorates. [& i won't even discuss the environment, people proud of the fact they won't recycle, landfills larger than some third world countries & those countries turned into toxic dumping grounds….] drive up & thru anything, but no drive to really do anything. cell phones! more like jail phones. ways to communicate are at an all time high, real communication is at an all time low. it's harder to really reach out & touch.
things have changed. silicone valley used to be a high tech corridor south of campus, now its every third woman's cleavage. no more free love, it's $4.99 per minute. got to admit it though, cybersex & phonesex are safer than "the real thing" there is no more real thing. even real sex, not hbo's porn series, but intercourse is artificial--is he good in bed, or is it viagra? not even coke the drink was the real thing, its got more additives than the stepped on street drug. even drugs aren't real anymore. designer drugs, xtc, & design-her jeans, only her physical trainer knows for sure. it's all artificial, except for taxes, i'd like to pay some virtual taxes. hell death isn't even real anymore. they sell MEGADETH [oops, is that a non-musical group? let's call it CYBERDEATH to avoid the lawsuit, let the lawyers go chase another ambulance] they sale CYBERDEATH by putting little bitty discs in big old colorful boxes. corporations see the profits in it, but miss the irony: there’s gotta be something strange bout blowing up things, spaceships, buildings or killing aliens, people or even frogs with something called a "joystick" oh well, beats a trip to mcdonalds, the post office or local schoolyard. even corporal death might not be real anymore: they got artificial organs, transplants, implants, life support machines, dialysis, try-alysis but still your loved ones gonna cry-alysis. unless of course, you got an hmo-then ain't no implants, no transplants, just die-alysis & plant yo ass six feet under. & if you really die, they got a tv show you can talk to your peoples from the grave …..
this afternoon, i was sitting in the spa at the local rec center, reading a favorite novel supported above the bubbling turbulence. an older man walked down the steps to enter the pool. i was stretched out with my leg supported by the ladder to get the jet to hit my sore hip at the right angle. the man barely touched my foot as he took the last step into the water. the man--and he appeared to be "the man" a rod steiger without hair--turned to me with what only could be described as a look of fear & apologized. "oh, i'm so sorry. i didn't mean to touch your foot" the same fear from his eyes weakened his voice. i've seen this same fear in people who know they're about to receive an overdue ass whipping, with interest. but not in The Man, The Man doesn't care about a Black man enough to apologize for anything he's done. The Man--who is quite often a female--even with his badges, guns, three pieces, title, &/or the other accoutrements with which he props his manhood/humanity/superiority, & asserts her/his power, does not show the fear that rules him/her. rarely evens sees the (hu)man behind the Black, & has no real idea about what the Black really is; a distinction without a difference--a difference without a distinction. a yellow rose as distinct from a red one, a blue jeep as different than a green one? but this man was not The Man, just some old guy trying to relax in a hot tub & some other guy's foot was touched in the process. i believe in personal space, even in a public place, so i appreciated his apology. "hey, no problem. my foot was blocking the way" & back into my book. but the novel lost my attention for a moment. what had i done to warrant such a fearful response? (though it was substantially better than having my presence completely ignored--which happens most of the time!) after about a minute of pondering i straightened up & approached the old man, now sitting, noticing me the fear trying to rekindle itself. i have played on this fear in the past. having so little power, no privilege & with my rights trampled on regularly, i often settled for affect. as a young man with a cultural log on my shoulder i received a smidgen of aggrandized satisfaction from such situations. it was/is not my fault they are afraid, not my responsibility to allay their psychoses. or is it? true: fear, feeling it or causing it, closes off options, closes minds. i have counseled Black students on White campuses who feel they are not their to educate their White counterparts about racial issues to take the opportunity. if racism is really a learned phenomenon, then who can help someone to unlearn it except those who are with them in learning situations & environment. if you will complain about racism, but not attempt to do something about it when you can, stop complaining. i am not ready to stop complaining, because racism still galls me, almost on a daily basis. as an educator i realize that education often happens outside of the classroom, often with better & more lasting results. i put my money where my mouth is, took a chance on finding an open ear behind the fear. "look, i really do appreciate the apology, but no harm was done. what we really need is to not be afraid to reach out & touch, to apologize when necessary, to forgive when necessary, to shed our baggage & communicate" a kind of comprehension replaced his apprehension & a sort of smile came into his eyes. i actually saw walls fall down, a mind opening! "yeah. i haven't seen you around. is this your first time here?" i went on the explain that i was on spring break, & usually teach on tuesdays. we talked for five minutes or so & i went back to my book. turns out he also taught--technical writing, had a grandson at the university where i teach, also suffered from a crippling arthritis & again, like me, hated traffic on 95 crossing the wilson bridge.
no big deal this interaction with a stranger, an old White man. i didn't make a friend, we didn't even exchange names. but i left another human with an impression of a Black man as a human being, not a statistic, not a media creation, not the object of fear he saw when entering the spa--or at least i hope i did. in closing an open letter to a closed mind, i understand as much as ever before that it is my mind that must remain open (the m- is for mr, ms and me.) being human means being open to the possibilities, both in myself as well as other human beings. as a parent, i told my young children there were ten significant syllables in the english language. i had wanted to say the ten best words because 10 is such a good number, so rather than using the contracted form (I’m sorry) & leaving nine words, i came up with the following list counting "sorry" as two syllables instead of one word: i love you please thank you I am sorry. this list worked well for children, but they grow up. & sometimes so do adults. i now have ten best words.
10 best words in the english language=Please / Thank You / I'm sorry / I Love You / Let's Talk
let's talk was a difficult decision. i almost chose "i'm listening" because the idea of communication being a two way street is crucial. "do something" was in the running since talk is not really enough, some action is needed to make change. still dialogue between involved parties remains the most significant way to determine relevant & possible action. for years, my personal motto has been "one love, one heart, one destiny" which i translated to mean "we are all in this together" Please to those who would join me in making positive social change. Thank You to those already working in that direction. I Love You to those close to me who may (or may not) know it, but need to hear it. I'm Sorry to those who i have hurt or offended, even if i did not know it at the time. Let's Talk to anyone who would help in my quest to open my mind, "to reach out & touch & feel a soul respond, a sharing, a caring…"
i’ve got to go now, but i’ll be back. we’ve all got problems. let’s try to solve them, together.

peace & progress
kamau