Letter to Fina

[ An extended and edited version of a long-form text sent to a friend. Dated July 21st, 2022. ]

Dear Fina,

I keep thinking of what you’ve said about making decisions that align with your values. First, I am appalled and just so sorry you had to experience the horrors of your “Trump boss.” Second, I admire you so much for splitting off from that whole energy. Not even taking the paycheck, knowing you’d get something better—or rather, knowing you didn’t need it. That your value is worth protecting at all costs. 

I must admit I am of many emotions recently, and can’t always find my center. I met with F¹ the other day at a museum. We hadn’t seen each other or spoken properly in over a month. We saw the Gerard Richter paintings at the museum² near the Imperial Palace. F was an hour late.

While waiting for him to arrive, I took a walk around the perimeter, crossed over the bridge to the Hirakawa-mon Gate, and found myself in a cluster of yellow dragonflies in the East Gardens. I found a map that said “You are here,” but I didn’t know exactly where here was—only that it was hot and I was surrounded by high stone walls and a moat that separated me from where I was before. I returned to the museum entrance just in time to see F come around the corner. He seemed out of breath, as if he’d ran the whole way.

I learned that Richter apparently spent a number of years painting only grey on canvas. The exhibition was made up of several rooms, each dedicated to collections of his that were more or less related to one another. The grey paintings, however, were not displayed together. Instead, they were spread separately throughout the exhibition as if to remind us that melancholy and formlessness accompany any room we encounter; hanging beside every medium or decade we get entangled in, no matter how clear the intention nor how vibrant the color. 

It was surreal to stand next to F in front of Richter’s paintings; the blurred images that resembled photographs, the abstracts, and the grey. We smiled at each other furtively, and were mostly quiet then. It was the beginning of the day and there were still many things between us left unsaid. F says and seems genuinely sorry. But I fear he just wants what he lost. I am blinded by both my love for him and my fear of the ways people take advantage of softness. How are we to know when something is real or not real? 

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I am sitting with a coffee and a notebook next to the train tracks. There’s a breeze and I keep having to fetch the lid of the coffee cup because the wind keeps taking it away. There’s a fancy train called the “Romance Car” that has passed by twice and it’s passengers stare at me in curiosity. I am tempted to wave if another one comes, but I don’t want to impose. They are staring out of windows and I feel it may be strange to stare back into them.

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I’m afraid I’ve just done something impulsive by “removing” F from Snapchat. I know you don’t use Snapchat, or any kind of social media anymore, so allow me to explain. He’s not blocked or anything, it just means we are one more layer apart than we were before. Kind of. I did it because I need time to digest all that’s happening. It’s wildly strange that there are so many pockets of shared space, and so many ways for things to come undone. To get Peeled. If I remove every layer until self can be found again, maybe once naked and raw and raging there can follow calm and quiet and truth—stillness.

I have to get the lid again.

Anyway. Thank you, and I love you. 

Love,

Jes

1. For more about F:

Birds and bread and honey

2. The National Museum of Modern Art located in Chiyoda.

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