Something Old

August 0498 12:58am


Dear Mary Angel,

I've been listening to a CD the last couple of days that has really intrigued me. I first bought the CD last year but I never really listened to it until the other day. The CD is from a group called "Dead Can Dance," and their name is pretty indicative of the tone and fiber of their style-- very modern and Old World all rolled into one, with dark and exotic themes. The lyrics they write are more poetry than actual lyrics. The following is a quick example... only five lines, and fits the search I began years ago. Its title is "Song of Sophia"

With one wish we wake the will
within wisdom.
With one will we wish the wisdom
within waking.
Woken, wishing, willing.

There is truth in those five lines, someone else's truth for sure, but truth nonetheless-- Awaken from your sleep and build your dreams. There lies wisdom! Tragically, there are very few people in the world who are truly awake. I often doubt the veracity of my waking life; am I truly awake, or do I sleep with untold thousands? But enough of this.

There was a girl I worked with at the station who is now gone. She has left for Auburn to advance her education. I miss having Brandi around on the weekends to talk and laugh with. I find it hard to believe that I am 18 years her senior as we get along well together and think a lot alike. She is going to be a teacher one day soon and I will not likely see her again, but I will remember her to you and to others that they may know the impact she had on my life.

She has softened a few rough edges in me. The sad part is that those rough edges were not always there. They were soft edges grown sharp through the bitterness of years spent in this self-imposed exile of mine. And I thank her for that. It seems I owe thanks to a good many people.

I think what I'd like to do now is thank all the people who had a hand in making me who I am. I'm sure I'll forget a few, indeed many, but this is simply an exercise in thankfulness and the ones I do forget will surely understand and know that I thank them as well. So, I would like to say thank-you to the following people, be they real or fictitious...

God. Mom and Dad. Grandma, Grandpa and the long line of lives that preceded them.
Anna, Danielle, Uncles Bob, Steve, Jim, and Clare. Aunts Simone, Martha, Gloria, Thao, and Heidi's Mother. Heidi, Little Jimmy, Charlie. Teresa Troutman, Leo O'Brian, Frank Alter, Dennis Banka, Stephanies Dean and Breeden, Gloria and both Pauls Dean. Mike "Where's-my-moon," The blonde girl Schoensiegle who wrote on paper,"YKPGFYA," whose mother had me detained by M.P.'s for daring to like her daughter. To Troop 88 and Mr. Peoples. Scott and Eric Mersnick, and survival campouts. Laura Bearnard, Stacy, and Bruce Rhodes. Nancy Rigdon and her brother John. Marc Marley and Lori Sutherland. Rodney Shueman. Eddie, Kenneth, Kevin and Sharon Trainor. Vince Kasprowicz and his whirling dervish. Sweet little Emily. To the woman who held me as I cried at my fathers funeral-- she who was once my step-sister. Mr. Lovrikovic for teaching me that hard lesson called 'complacency.' David and Peaches Skinner and Northside Baptist Church. Delilah Dean. Les and Rebecca Grice. Mike Salow, Clint Menacof, and Jim Stoller who shared a jail cell with me on my twenty-ninth birthday and owns the first painting I sold in exile. Bradford Woods who is somewhere in Texas enlightening the masses. Peter Paulie, editor of Colorado Springs' only daily newspaper who was nothing but an encouragement to me. R.D. Golden for teaching me how not to treat a woman. James Bell for teaching me how not to treat a friend. Iota Gamma for showing me what brotherhood is not. Carol Pizza, Mary Angel, and Cristal Conley. James Pigneri, Sylvia Harrison. Spinnaker's Restaurant for teaching me how not to treat employees. Edward Eugene "Hoss" Lewis for showing me that no man is worthy of worship, and David Rabe who has shown me that all men are at times to be pitied. To Spain for my first lesson in prejudice, and to George Washington Carver High School for my second. To Kimberly Steele who liked me perhaps as much as I liked her. Mr. Jackson's Homeroom class who did not paint the mural (I did!). 1st and 10th grade art contests. Mr. Early and any girl named Kelli. To band class and the trumpet my mother bought for me and my love for music. Belinda Kelly for teaching me the true meaning of fidelity and the phrase 'sex-as-a-weapon.' Everet Youngberg the ever-smiling. Taco, Hercules, Rufus and Dudley. To Edgar Rice Burroughs, Robert E. Howard, and J.R.R. Tolkien. Merry and Pippin and good ole' Sam Gamgee. Charlotte Norris. To Paula Kirker, because she liked Klaatu. Stephen Hawking, Albert Einstein, and Marilyn Monroe. Diana Spencer and Norma Jean. Kansas. Both the calm and stormy seas of winter that I piloted a steady course upon. When Worlds Collide. The Beatles. Enya and Loreena McKennitt. Sinead's burning of Troy. Homer's burning of Troy. Ulysses and Penelope. The sinking of Atlantis and the land that is now the Mediterranean sea. Pangea and Hyperboria. Ming the Mercilous, Flash and Dale Arden. Ornella Muti's 'Aura.' The Alan Parsons Project and the Turn of a Friendly Card. Ron Ely's 'Tarzan.' Author Gene Wolfe, Ursula K. LeGuin's "Lathe of Heaven." Ray Bradbury and his "Martian Chronicles," especially 'The Million Year Picnic.' Hermann Hesse and Siddhartha. Immanuel Velikovsky. William Golding's 'Lord of the Flies.' 'I Am The Cheese.' 'Farenheit 451.' Phillip K. Dick's, 'Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep?' (Blade Runner). 'Logan's Run' (The Book). 'The Stand.' 'The Dark Tower.' Robert Jordan's, 'The Wheel Of Time.' Robert Roy McGregor and William Wallace. The highlands of Scotland and anything with bagpipes. To 'The Sun in the Stream,' that tune that echoed across the mountain top at my father's funeral. 'Cursum Perficio.' Cecil B. Demille's Ten Commandments and to Ben Hur. Sensei Richard Lording's Shorin-Ryu. To Goju-Ryu and Sanchin. Hiroaki Samura and the Blade of the Immortal. Michael J. Linsner. Darrian Ashoka and Dawn. Gary Numan and the B-52's. The Moody Blues. Yes. A Farewell to Kings and Moving Pictures. Clannad, Mary Black, Connie Dover and especially Luka Bloom. Dan Fogelberg. Stevie Nicks and Linsey Buckingham. Tears for Fears, Queen and Dixie Chicks. For finding Shawn Colvin before everyone else did. Charleton Heston in Planet of the Apes. Jaws. Jean-Luc Picard, Worf, and Data. Bram Stoker and the scariest vampire story ever. Alexandre Dumas, Victor Hugo and Jules Verne. Back to the Future one, two and three. Robert Adams 'Return of the Horseclans' and Milo Morai. Richard Adams 'Watership Down,' especially Hazel, Fiver, Strawberry, Hyzenthlay, my very own 'Hrududu' parked out front, and the concept of Tharn and all it implies. Bruce Lee, Jackie Chan and Steven Segal, all of whom are the real deal. U2 and Sting's Fields of Gold as well as his Dream of the Blue Turtle. Mrs. Bell who treated me as though I were one of her own. Dan Robbins. Joby Roberts. Cliff Myers. Lee Pizza. Suzie Durko for sharing long walks with me. Mike Gailfoil. Debra Lively. Robby Heisner. Steve Hagan. The Entire Kasprowicz Clan and that Hallowed place known to one and all as the 'Oaks.' David Everett. Bill Norris and his lovely bride. Catherine "Cat" Vaughan, Kim Dosier, Wendy Morris, Krishelle, Desa Dance,Dot Brown, Lisa Treadwell, and Sherif Dawson. Dawn Floyd, for whom the bells did toll. Brandi Holton. To Hannah and her Needle, Corriandor, and Arwen. The Stoning Of Charity and the return of inspiration after three years. Sun and Flower. The Poetry of War and Howard's Ball. Rush Limbaugh and Howard Stern for a look at both sides of the fence. To Solitude, for teaching me how to think for myself and showing me the importance of doing so. To the idea that the glass is neither half full nor half empty, but 'Fully Half Empty.' To Mary Angel, who was my first and most cherished memory...

And the list could go on and on. But I think you get the idea. There are so many people and things that have contributed to who I have become, some good, some bad. Sure, I'd like to be able to go back to when I was 17, with all I know now and do it differently. who wouldn't? But I would no longer be who I am... Or would I? That is a question best studied at another time as it is currently 3:34am and I am in need of sleep.

Hope I didn't bore you, Mary Angel.

With love,


Eric.


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Note: Present Day... some of the items in my list are recent additions. I've find myself, time and again, adding to the list.

Something Old

January 0898


Dearest Mary Angel,

I humbly apologize for not writing to you in such a long time. My last letter was the night of my birthday and I had allowed myself to get horribly drunk. I hadn't been like that since the year before, the excuse for which being (if excuse it could be called) the death of a friend from work. I rarely drink as it is, which is a good thing, and I was foolish enough to allow myself to go so far, but that's neither here nor there. My last babbling letter was a cry for help. And you can't help me.

I had been so miserable, and it took losing my job to see it clearly. Eight days after my birthday Colin fired me. It was completely without warning and I was too stunned to even ask why. All he said was that my performance was "too little too late," and that it was out of his hands. He went on to say that if I wanted I could continue to work in the kitchen as a cook until I found work elsewhere, but he never gave me a clear answer as to why I was being fired. I told him I would think about it and give him a call. He asked for my keys and I left.

I had another set of keys at the house and for a month and a half I contemplated going to the restaurant some night when everyone was gone, disabling the alarm system, and wreaking havoc on their food inventory and stealing money from the office. But I never did, and I thank God for it-- yes, I am human. I too have terrible thoughts. Instead, I applied for unemployment and made a half-hearted attempt at finding work (meaning, I didn't look at all). I figured after ten years at that place I deserved a vacation. So I took six weeks off and slept almost continuously. I was so emotionally exhausted.

I actually decided several months prior to being fired that I when I left that hell hole I would never work in another restaurant again unless I owned it, and so, when I looked, I looked outside the food-service industry.

In early November, I went to both television stations here in Dothan and applied for whatever might be available. Channel 18 never called for an interview but Channel 4 interviewed me on the spot and I was hired the next day! I am now what is called a 'Master Control Operator,' which means little in regards to pay-scale but the job is so incredibly easy that circus bears could do it. I literally get paid to watch television and push a few buttons.

And get this: the most amazing thing happened the day after I was hired! Spinnaker's Restaurant, the establishment to which I had devoted ten years of my life, without any warning, closed three hours early on a Saturday evening and informed the staff that it was closing its doors in Dothan forever. I received a call that very evening from a kitchen worker I am friends with, and while he cried and cried, he told me everything. The home office, I later learned, closed six other units that same week and had recently closed two prior to the Dothan closing.

Initially, I was so elated to hear that the company for which I spent ten years slaving had been forced to fire almost five-hundred employees and over thirty managers to stay afloat. But as I began to think more on it, I began to feel sorry for all the people who had been let go four weeks before Christmas. They had all, like myself, given a significant amount of time every week to a company that, in the end, couldn't have cared less about them.

So here I am: It's 1998, and I am somewhat happier, but the loneliness I feel grows stronger every day. I want a family, and I'll probably have to hurt someone I care a great deal about to get on with my life, and find someone who will love me.

But that's all I'll say about that for now.

With great love and longing,

Goodnight and sleep well,


Eric

Present Day:

There are some twenty letters between the first and this one. I was very unhappy with my job, and unhappy with where I was in my life. I looked everything through a prism of regret. I viewed every lost love as a last hope for happiness, but you were always chief among those lost loves. I say 'loves' but there were only two; you and one other.

Anyway. I've been at the station for twelve years now. I've gone from Master Control, to Audio, Graphics, Tapes, Servers, to Creative Services and Cameras, Commercials and Editing to where I am now in Sales, building advertising for the internet. For the first time in my life I actually have an office that's all mine. The pay still stinks, but I'm finally in a position to negotiate for a decent increase. And from all I've heard the GM is concerned about whether I'm happy. And truth is, I am. I wish I made more; I wish I made what someone in a larger market would make doing the same work. I wouldn't be driving a '91 Corolla with 232 thousand miles on it if I were.

The contrast between then and now is night and day. I was a miserable hateful wreck back then, mostly because of how raped of goodness I felt at having to be the kind of manager they expected me to be. A starving dog generally receives more compassion that I did. But today... today I'm treated quite well (accept in the pay department), and I'm respected (accept in the pay department). And that alone goes a long way toward easing Eric back into the mainstream.

In a few months I'll be free to court. And I intend to be courtly. I will be the kind of man who enjoys good company and treats his dates with respect. And maybe... just maybe, the Lord will bless ME with someone who will make all my letters to you moot. And yes, when I find her I will tell her about my letters to you. I will let her read them. And I will hope she sees in my letters to you the promise of someone who will love her with equal and greater fervor. She will know what she can expect from me in response to the love she gives in return.

And there's nothing wrong with that. Whoever she is, wherever she is, if I can't share these letters with her, how can I open my heart to her? These letters-- all twelve years of them --ARE my heart. The fullest most honest expression of my heart.

And yes, twelve years later, I am still on the cusp of hurting someone I care deeply about, but who has made it quite clear she doesn't wish to marry. I can't... no... I won't wait any longer.

And I have work in the morning. Someday this week I will have to find time to tell you of my lunch date last Thursday.

Until then,

Take care, and may God bless you and all you hold dear,


Eric

Revisiting My First Letter, and First Post

July 16, 1997


Dear Mary Angel,

I wonder if you think of me. I think of you almost every day, and I remember you with great fondness. Of course we both know why and because of it, I remember you still. I wish I had taken the time to know you better, because I would love to talk with you. You were such a good listener... but you're probably not the same girl I knew. In fact, I know you're not. I'm not even the same person I was, and what you found attractive in me then you probably wouldn't think so attractive now. People change. I have... and will again.

I wonder if you think fondly of me. I was very weak then; unsure of myself and looking to others for my identity (hell! they didn't even know who they were!), and in a lot of ways I'm still unsure of who I am except to say that I am Eric Lee Ashley and as Bob Seger sang so aptly, "...still running against the wind."

Well. Let me tell you about myself. I'm thirty-six and eleven months old. I've never married. In fact I've never come close; I'm still running. Remember how you chased me? And I just ran and ran. A part of me still smiles to think of it. I was so shy of girls (and still am), and you chased me so very hard. I sometimes wonder if you were my one chance to find happiness. But that's silly. It's my own fault I'm not happy.

I hate my job. I'm a manager at a restaurant that has long since seen it's day in the sun. The company itself is in a decline and there's no room for advancement. The atmosphere of the place is beginning to smell the way St. Andrews bay would sometimes smell... seaweed drying in the sun and fiddler crabs scurrying about brandishing their one large pincer almost as if they were too poor to afford a matching pair. Well, I know how he feels, and I am miserable.

I've given my resume to a local company that I hope to be hired on with. It's a company called HealthQuest. The corporate office is located very close to where I live. Minerals and herbs are the company's business and I've acquired an interest in such things over the last few years. I just love the way I feel when I "take my vitamins" on a regular basis; almost as though I can do anything.

I know the owner of the company through a mutual friend and the owner suggested I submit a resume because he could "...make me rich." The offer was very tempting especially in light of the fact that I'm very unhappy with the direction my current career is taking me. It was two days ago that I took him my resume, but I've heard nothing yet. I'm almost willing to take a pay cut initially if it will lead to advancement and pay increases in the future, but when someone says, "I'll make you rich," what am I supposed to think? "Rich" is a hell of a lot more than what I am right now.

Well, It's late. 10:45, and way past my bedtime, seeing as how I have a twelve hour shift tomorrow in the kitchen, beginning at 8am.

Think on me and I'll think on you...

All my love,


Eric

This was my very first letter to you Mary. I had just bought my first computer and quickly set about copying everything I had ever written onto the 1-gig hard drive-- realize, this was 1996. When I ran out of material, and miserable at my job, for some reason I'll never be able to understand I decided to write you a letter.

Looking over this thirteen year old letter I quickly notice how "fledgling" my thoughts appear-- I am a much better writer today. I also notice how perfunctory it all sounds... like I'm merely going through the motion of writing. Anything to download my daily stress so I can get some sleep. I can't say whether or not it worked.

What I do know is this... when I looked back at the string of decisions that had led me to where I then was, you seemed to me, or rather your memory seemed to be a brightly lit fulcrum upon which my life shifted from one direction to the another-- my decision to leave the car when you demanded I stay... a party was more important than you.

This, I realized, was the crux of my misery. I wanted a chance to go back and do it all over again-- and who hasn't wanted that at some time in their life? I wanted a chance to stay in the car, to quit Iota Gamma, to stop drinking and smoking pot, to stop relying on those miscreants for personal identity and my sense of self-worth. I wanted a chance to graduate and settle into a career, a wife, children. Instead, I found myself fifteen years older, and like Herman Hesse's Siddhartha... restlessly searching for my own truth. My own inner peace. I only hoped that I would not be, like Siddhartha, an old gray and bent man when I found it.

I don't know when my letters to you became compulsion. I don't know when I fell in love with you again-- the young woman I remembered, and knew would never meet again. I don't know when my memory of you became an ideal by which I judged all other women. I only knew that I needed a confidante, and knew you would keep my deepest, darkest secrets. So I poured my heart out to you, knowing I was safe.

Four years later the journals ended, and rather abruptly. I know why, but I'll not tell here. I've never forgotten you, and though the journals ended, I've never stopped writing you... I've just stopped writing daily. The journals served their purpose, I was freed of a lot of baggage, but only to discover there was more circling the baggage claim. Everyone I've ever met waits there-- they wait for their own seemingly endless train of luggage.

I started this blog more than a year ago. I had wanted to start this blog for as long as five years now. Part of me thought that if you ever read them, I would be free of you (though secretly I've never wished to be free). Part of me thought it both silly and emotionally dangerous to post so much of myself online for anyone to read and exploit. So when I began this blog I did it knowing you would never read these letters. I felt safe. I didn't RSS, I didn't advertise, I kept it strictly private. But I did make it available for Google searches.

That might not have been the wisest decision I've ever made.

I never liked the look of it. The design was unmanageable, and because of such I was an infrequent guest at my own blog. I wrote you sparingly here, but less sparingly elsewhere.

For the longest time (ten years at least) I have felt I lost my muse. But I know this is not true. My muse has never left. I have just shut her out. This is something I cannot continue. If I am to be free, she must be free.

And so I will continue to write to her. Posting old and new, with a renewed sense of purpose. Not to wallow in self pity, but to glory in a love I once had... and still cherish today. Each addressed to you in chaste and honest love.


Till next time,

All my love

E

Dear Mary Angel,

I have written hundreds of letters to you. For some five years I wrote, then stopped. I know why I stopped then, but I can't honestly say why I am starting once more.

This first letter was, at the beginning, nothing more than an experiment, to see how long I could sustain an effort; I wanted a diary, but I didn't want to address my letters to a flat and unfeeling book. The only one I could think to address my letters was you-- you were first in my mind then, not so much now though still a cherished memory.

Dear Mary Angel,

I wonder if you think of me. I think of you almost every day and remember you with great fondness. Of course we both know why, and because of it I remember you still. I wish I had taken the time to get to know you better, because I would love to talk with you now. You were such a good listener...but you're probably not the same girl I knew. In fact, I know you're not. I'm not even the same person I was, and what you found attractive in me then you probably wouldn't think so attractive now. People change. I have, and will again. I wish I had not lost touch with you.

I wonder if you think fondly of me. I was very weak then, unsure of myself and looking to others for my identity [Funny thing is, they didn't even know who THEY were!], and in a lot of ways I'm still unsure of who I am except to say that I am Eric Lee Ashley and, as Bob Seger so aptly sang, "...still running against the wind."

Let me tell you about myself. I'm thirty-six and eleven months old. I've never married. In fact I've never come close-- I'm still running. Remember how you chased me? And I just ran and ran. A part of me still smiles to think of it, another part curses sulphurously. I was so shy of girls [Still am, though now they are women], and you chased me so very hard. I sometimes wonder if that was my one chance to find happiness. But that's silly! It's my own fault that I'm not happy.

I hate my job. I'm a manager at a restaurant that has long since seen it's day in the sun. The company itself is in decline and there's no room for advancement. The atmosphere of the place is beginning to smell the way St. Andrews bay sometimes did, seaweed drying in the sun and fiddler crabs scurrying about their one giant pincers brandished high in warning... "we may be poor, but watch out!" And I am miserable.

I've given my resume to a local company that I hope to be hired on with. The corporate office is located very close to where I live. Minerals and herbs are the company's business and I've acquired an interest in such things over the last few years. I just love the way I feel when I "take my vitamins" on a regular basis; almost as though I can do anything.

I know the owner of the company through a mutual friend and the owner suggested I submit a resume because he could "...make me rich." The offer was very tempting especially in light of the fact that I'm very unhappy with the direction my current career is taking me. It was two days ago that I took him my resume, but I've heard nothing yet. I'm almost willing to take a pay cut initially if it will lead to advancement and pay increases in the future, but when someone says, "I'll make you rich...," what is one to think? "Rich" is a hell of a lot more than what I am right now.

Well, It's late. 10:45, and way past my bedtime, seeing as how I have a twelve hour kitchen shift tomorrow beginning at 8am.

Think on me and I'll think on you...

All my love,

Eric

A simple enough beginning, and much more to come.

Till next time, and with love,


Eric

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