Came So Far for Beauty

I came so far for beauty
I left so much behind
My patience and my family
My masterpiece unsigned
I thought I'd be rewarded
For such a lonely choice
And surely she would answer
To such a very hopeless voice

Leonard Cohen, "Came So Far for Beauty"

*******

Dear Kate,

We take pictures because we know for sure we will look at them again.

Well, we don't know for sure.

For some it is a very big maybe, but not for us, the strong and healthy.  If there's no bad news from the doctor (presuming there is a doctor at all we needed), why expect otherwise?

Here's the question then, when will you stop taking pictures?

There must be a point you will tell yourself, Well, there's no need for a doctor to tell me there is no point any more.  A moment will come when you know a picture you take, any ever taken, will never be looked at again by you, who captured that eventful prior moment under the assumption of going concern.  If your album is password protected (as it should), it will mean with the closing of your eyes the cosmos is also closing hers on everything that is you.

So when will it be, for you, to stop taking pictures?  Stop writing?  Stop humming to yourself in the shower?  Stop giving yourself a haircut fancy beyond the bare necessity to look merely tidy?  Stop assuming what is untenable?

I know people who don't read, write, or even snap a picture, easy and fool-proof as it is now.  They do more useful things, like making money, getting their kids to learn Chinese and keep flipping properties to land their legacy on the right side of the economic equation, and needful things, such as buying grocery and fixing leaky roof.

There will be a point when everything is leaking out of us that our roof is the last thing we will need to worry about, a moment when the sight and sound of water dripping from our ceiling shall no longer wield any power over our imagination.  Closing time.  The eyelids of the cosmos fall with yours, not a false alarm this time, no more curtain call.

Why write in your book of longings if you will need to close it eventually--or unfortunately suddenly?

No wonder so many never open theirs at all.

Yours, Alex

P.S.  Today I got this sloth from you won't believe where.  Isn't it the cutest thing ever?