The thing that struck me was this: the only response I can offer to the words that pour out of you is a non-response, only an affirmation. An affirmation of your pure, true gift. An affirmation of the image of you you have created in my mind through the stories you weave. An amalgam of truth and perceptions, a single point of view filtered through multiple experiences. Whether you are aware or not, although something in me believes you must be, every word, every expression opens you up for the taking, leads a person willing to go along for the ride on a deeper journey to the core of your soul. You lay yourself bare, but in with an elegance and grace, behind the dignity of ambiguity, yourself there to be excavated through the tools you provide, assuming the one reading recognizes their shapes and meanings and usefulness.
Sometimes I think I give myself too much credit for understanding you, for feeling a sincere and intense bond to the personal awareness and understanding you discover as you go; for your habit of collecting every minute bit of knowledge you encounter along the way, knowing intuitively that it will be useful, and most likely invaluable, at some point in the future. This habit of yours is a gift, that comes back around with stunning frequency. It is one of the innumerable gifts you've given to yourself, and is in fact, my opinion here, the most marked evidence of the mere fact of you. You grow more intelligent in the ways of yourself with every passing day...good, bad, indifferent, uncategorizable. You know. I believe you are also learning, in fact have known for a long time, that the only thing in your way is you, and you are brave and strong enough to overcome that.
If you want me to tell you how fascinating and brilliantly gifted you are with words, I am all over it. You are. But it's not what I want to tell you.
What I want to tell you is that I see it. Vividly. You are Worthy. Of all the things you seek, all the things you dream. While it may be that I am only seeing an illusion of you, I don't believe that. I believe, instead, that buried in the words, and the nimble turns of a phrase, you have shown your heart, your soul, your mind, in bits and pieces, and through random gestures that when put together expose a self-portrait of a beautiful human being. Hold your head high and proud. You know that all struggle is not in vain. Sometimes we swim against the tide to reach the calm waters to float along.
You are valued, and treasured as the infinitely precious thing you are. If that's more than you need to know from me, I'm sorry...but it's your own fault for introducing me.
And that, my friend, is all I have in me.
July, 2005