(no subject)
work is for suckers.
i've been missing lots by not jumping in more lakes in my life.
my hair is longer since you've last seen me.
i pass out while making out?
i write again!
Ive never written a fan letter before. I should have started smaller
I have a strange sense of attachment to you; I am not a young Jewish guitar player; I have been neither praised for nor accused of writing political songs. I have come nowhere close to changing the shape of the world. We share no talents whatsoever. But my father has seen you perform and was a big fan and I have seen my father perform and, if my lack-of-memory serves me correctly, I was a big fan of his. This forms something of a mangled and rotted runt of a family tree in my mind.
My father, Robert (Bob to a select few!) went to school and spent many young, impressionable years in upstate New YorkAnnandale-on-Hudson, to be exact. So if the first name and Jewish heritage is just a coincidence, how do you explain location, location, location?
The man was brilliant and I mean that in all senses of the word, with all of its connotations: sparkling, smart, witty, beautiful and British. Unfortunately, Im finding out certain details too late in my life and not soon enough in his. This brilliant man (in the living sense of the word) stopped shining sixteen years ago. Any questions I have left about him, questions I dont even know exist yet, must be edited for content and brought up upon eggshells before his remaining family and his widow. (Its strange referring to her as anything so serious.)
As you can imagine, Im quite sick of these eggshells. And now simply you or he can answer the unanswered questions. Did you make eye contact? Would you recognize him? Respect him? What if youre my last link to whom he was inside? What if I not only resemble him physically but also am quite comparable mentally? I graduated younger than everyone else too, you know. Would he be proud of my other decisions in lifenot just being a member of the Church of Bob Dylan, but the composition of my photographs? My favorite movies? My friends?
Is it possible to grieve this late after the event that caused the grieving has occurred? I guess anything is possible these days; I barely just got my teeth to be pearly white and now everyone else wants theirs blue! (Would he have laughed at that joke?)
Maybe my melancholy has got the best of me. Maybe we would fight like other fathers and daughters. I would complain about him not getting me and he would shake his head and mumble something about kids these days. Or maybe I would only know him as a late monthly check that Mom counts on for clothes and groceries. I cant keep forgetting that situations like these occur.
Im not religious, so Robert Rivlin (Dad) is not in the clouds looking down on me. Hes not watching my every move with my old dog, neither of them healed or pain-free, waiting for it to be my time. But then where is he? I need to be careful what afterlife bullshit I buy into these days.
(I would apologize for the tangents but they arent. These questions are bushwhacked paths through uncharted territory for which it is now or never.)
Sometimes listening to your music brings me to tears. But I am ashamed to say those tears and the goose bumps arent because of your talent or lyrics that hit me like a truck (though I will not deny that this, too, happens sometimes). This funny skin phenomenon and the leaky tear ducts are due to our connection, about which I am bravely writing to you my first fan letter. Dad has Forever Young (yours, not Rod Stewarts) on his gravestone. My brother, Justin, has Forever Young tattooed on his chest. And I ate my first batch of pot brownies while watching Dont Look Back. So you see? Im not some neo-hippie preaching about the demolition of the world over a cellular phone with bad reception. Im connected to you. Im in my fathers past without having been part of his future! Its truly incredible, this connection. All of us listening to each other and passing along contagious goose bumps and tears.
So, through this transitive theory, youre my fondest memory of my father!
Thank you.
i've been missing lots by not jumping in more lakes in my life.
my hair is longer since you've last seen me.
i pass out while making out?
i write again!
Ive never written a fan letter before. I should have started smaller
I have a strange sense of attachment to you; I am not a young Jewish guitar player; I have been neither praised for nor accused of writing political songs. I have come nowhere close to changing the shape of the world. We share no talents whatsoever. But my father has seen you perform and was a big fan and I have seen my father perform and, if my lack-of-memory serves me correctly, I was a big fan of his. This forms something of a mangled and rotted runt of a family tree in my mind.
My father, Robert (Bob to a select few!) went to school and spent many young, impressionable years in upstate New YorkAnnandale-on-Hudson, to be exact. So if the first name and Jewish heritage is just a coincidence, how do you explain location, location, location?
The man was brilliant and I mean that in all senses of the word, with all of its connotations: sparkling, smart, witty, beautiful and British. Unfortunately, Im finding out certain details too late in my life and not soon enough in his. This brilliant man (in the living sense of the word) stopped shining sixteen years ago. Any questions I have left about him, questions I dont even know exist yet, must be edited for content and brought up upon eggshells before his remaining family and his widow. (Its strange referring to her as anything so serious.)
As you can imagine, Im quite sick of these eggshells. And now simply you or he can answer the unanswered questions. Did you make eye contact? Would you recognize him? Respect him? What if youre my last link to whom he was inside? What if I not only resemble him physically but also am quite comparable mentally? I graduated younger than everyone else too, you know. Would he be proud of my other decisions in lifenot just being a member of the Church of Bob Dylan, but the composition of my photographs? My favorite movies? My friends?
Is it possible to grieve this late after the event that caused the grieving has occurred? I guess anything is possible these days; I barely just got my teeth to be pearly white and now everyone else wants theirs blue! (Would he have laughed at that joke?)
Maybe my melancholy has got the best of me. Maybe we would fight like other fathers and daughters. I would complain about him not getting me and he would shake his head and mumble something about kids these days. Or maybe I would only know him as a late monthly check that Mom counts on for clothes and groceries. I cant keep forgetting that situations like these occur.
Im not religious, so Robert Rivlin (Dad) is not in the clouds looking down on me. Hes not watching my every move with my old dog, neither of them healed or pain-free, waiting for it to be my time. But then where is he? I need to be careful what afterlife bullshit I buy into these days.
(I would apologize for the tangents but they arent. These questions are bushwhacked paths through uncharted territory for which it is now or never.)
Sometimes listening to your music brings me to tears. But I am ashamed to say those tears and the goose bumps arent because of your talent or lyrics that hit me like a truck (though I will not deny that this, too, happens sometimes). This funny skin phenomenon and the leaky tear ducts are due to our connection, about which I am bravely writing to you my first fan letter. Dad has Forever Young (yours, not Rod Stewarts) on his gravestone. My brother, Justin, has Forever Young tattooed on his chest. And I ate my first batch of pot brownies while watching Dont Look Back. So you see? Im not some neo-hippie preaching about the demolition of the world over a cellular phone with bad reception. Im connected to you. Im in my fathers past without having been part of his future! Its truly incredible, this connection. All of us listening to each other and passing along contagious goose bumps and tears.
So, through this transitive theory, youre my fondest memory of my father!
Thank you.