Dear Seymore,
Do you know about the books? About the time they broke my heart? The dark room spoke of the generations, of the roots. Red, blue, and purple flake off the images of history. Words stand still in penmanship that belongs only to the past. Artifacts that speak to forward movement–that represent a place within the between–stand darkened by the corner they now call home. The dampened grey tells the story of history, of moments, and of facts. The grey is bound by earthly presence to the foundation, to the things that can be seen and touched. The air of the place is thick with the purple of kings, and green as it is found only in December. It is heavy with the weight of change, of growing up, of dying. The hues seen between the lines of light and dust speak to memory, to pain, to the emotion that creates in each the vulnerable child. The air tells the story of history as it is felt, and not as it is remembered.
Seymore, this room has always held the shape of my blood, the shape that defines where I come from. The room always takes me back, always embraces me when I need the warmth of being held. And Seymore, in those moments–in the moments I need the peace and harmony–it is not the room embracing me, but the space created through all the lives. In those moments I am embraced by the emotion of my roots, by the stories and by the time seen through the walls of the room. History finds my heartbeat and lets me feel and remember what it means. It lets me feel the weight of my ancestors, it holds me in the warmth of where I come from.
And Seymore, as a little girl I learned to love there, learned to dance there, learned to be captivated by a thousand bright reflections of my face there. And as I grew I learned to rest there. The room showed me the peace of lying still and alone. It taught me to know were I come from, to feel the pieces that are embedded in my soul. The heavy air showed me myself and taught me how to feel and be felt, how to touch and be touched, how to see and be seen. The colors taught me how to be free.
The room fills and empties with the tide of change. It marks the boundary between spirit and earthly reality. When I was little it was full, dark, heavy with the weight of no place to go. The space where I found rest was empty, only the curved and twisted metal illuminating my experience in a heavy red stood to tell the story of history. But Seymore, the room has found itself full once more. It has found itself home to the painful history. The dark tones of wood and the hurried scribble of a furied heart hold the collection of heartbreak.
Seymore, did you know that all my life the stiff leather and the smell of yellowing pages has held the feeling of safety? Did you know that there was never a time I didn’t marvel at the weight of their presence, or that I didn’t long to understand the soul beneath their binding. And Seymore, did you know that I always looked in the sparkle of his eyes and searched for what lies behind, searched for my reflection. Did you know that as he sat and read I stood, desperately wanting to understand.
Now Seymore, what I seek is the heaviness. The weight of his bones and of his flesh. Now I seek the memory of the last glance, the lost moment of recognition. And Seymore, I’m terribly afraid. I’m afraid of forgetting, I’m afraid because it is inevitable. I fear the day the memory of his glisten, of his sound, loses the clarity that makes it recognizable. I fear the day the image becomes fragmented, and with it falls the image of goodbye.
And Seymore, I’ve grown into a person, a soul, created in the image of my roots. Known to myself, felt by myself. And Seymore as I’ve grown the weight of where I come from permeates what it is to be me, what it is I am to become. When I was little I knew only books, I knew only of their generic presence, their existence representing a unified body. As I learned to know the world and searched for meaning I came to find the soul I had always wanted to know. I came to hear the stories humans have told each other for centuries, and I came to find the understanding that lives within the search.
These things were found in solitude, in the darkness of purpose far from home. Far from the safety of the sacred space and far from the pages that embody what it means. These stories became a part of me, they found me and offered their embrace when the embrace of home was unattainable. And do you know Seymore, how I left? How I found these things and lived immersed in the place where their soul meets mine in a divine embrace? Did you know that the place created in this divinity is the place that filled my days as he was living his last years of life?
And Seymore, do you know that when it came time for him to pass the pieces fell together? The space far from home fell apart in perfect harmony. The work led me back to him, back to my roots. The fragments emerged as pieces of the whole. The divinity of thought I had come to know found the divinity of place I had never left.
Can you remember the heartbreak, Seymore? The sacred space sits heavy with death. Seeing the contours of change once more. The weight of the space seen in multiplied hues. The purple of kings and the December green find themselves complimented by the red of guilt, the yellow that lives within the Iris, and the blue that holds so much depth it losses you and leaves you weeping in it’s wake. The color sits, dyed into the dark leather of the books, contrasted by the sublime gold of letters, of words. The soft wings of their internal existence find light within the shadows.
I sit with the grey holding my frame and touch each book, heavy with the weight of the man. I peer into the soul, and through instinct, I know where it will find it’s home.
And Seymore, do you know what it is to have brilliance placed before you? To see it and to know the mind that held the key to it’s map exists no more? Do you know about the strength it takes to sit with that? The fury, the pain, the heartbreak, and the vulnerability? Can you see the light soften and expand as it is seen through the lens of tears, through the lens of human suffering?
I know what it looks likes to see brilliance, I know what it feels like to embrace the suffering and vulnerability. I know what it is to grieve. And as the tears formed the illusion of contrast the space faded into the dark and the beauty of the mind became illuminated. The light casting it’s glory onto the word drawn in broken letters, the word drawn to mark the space, the word drawn to define what it meant–the lines that form, just beneath the surface–the singular word: french.
Until next time,
Kat
