InsubstantialityWe at the Research Institute for Inane Triviality are often in receipt of submissions from various and sundry places, most of which are entirely unknown to us and, it seems, equally indefinite and somewhat blurred to the submitters themselves. While the submissions range from the ordinary (false starts, dead ends) to the extraordinary (toenail clippings, eraser shavings) to the sublime (the discovery of a certain painting on the inside lip of a door’s jamb) we feel that all of them contain within themselves some sort of pressing urgency to be seen, revealed, understood, categorized and then excreted into the thin air to live among the particles of newness that come down and form along the surface of our time and our place and our people. Below are some of these snippets, culled from the blemished pages of a young man’s life in letters. We believe him to be long dead, having existed briefly between the years 1909 and 1968, though that is neither verifiable nor exact (his own notes state his birthdays as 1/1/01, 9/10/11, 10/10/10, and 12/1/21.) As far as judging the particular shade of triviality embedded in each of these oddments, we leave that in the hands of the most faithful and fateful readers and hope that you (Our dearest) find at least a single pinprick of light somewhere amongst all the garbage.
23 August 1933
Dear Unfriendly Friend:
I wrote several notes to myself and figured you would want to see them. I know you don’t care, and you know I know that you don’t care, and maybe that is enough of a reason to write me back once in awhile. Lots of people do lots of things they don’t care about all the time.
2. Woke up and took a bath. Today! Today! Bright and hot! Today! The bath was warm with the milky white from that jar next to the faucet soothing and warm all around. Today! "Time, and all you took"
6. You will You will! Today, and always. Flying like the birds I wrote to you about in that first letter, how they sing and they sing of you and waking up and it always made me think of you before school, I was always happy. I am always happy hearing them sing to me about you, chirping and cooing, calm and soothing.
I don’t know if it matters that I don’t love you still.
Fondly,
Your Friend
11 September 1933
Sat waited helpless and felt like little locks were on or in my wrists - cold and metal and not moving to breathe at all. God, the feeling of loss and inability to change one’s situation completely of one’s own freewill. Its hell, that’s jail. Today for the analyst, been not there in a while. Haven't gone, just haven't gone and now I need to. Her bill from last month is expected and that's fine. I just like delivering things in person, it’s me. That's all. Yeah, the window of the train had some good ones this morning, sky and horizon and trees in a line all melting into a streak with little pops of light from some poor people's backyards and lucky enough to catch sight of kids playing with hoses in their shorts all shining and wet-skinned excited to be cooling off from the heat. Once, I took everything off and jumped in the lake and tried to stay down for awhile and let the water hold me and surround me and all that, it was quiet and I liked the popping of my ears and rushing sound of diving.
13 September 1933
Read more Bhagivad Ghita, read more Diamond Sutras, read more Dhammapada, read everything
16 January 1934
Dear Mother:
Can anyone even calm a person? It seems like lots of people try, and maybe not try to calm, but just try to help. But it never works, I mean, it just never works. Someone who has the ability to take a person at his or her worst, most degrading moments, should just turn them around and say: "Hey, hop in the shower and wrap up in bed, it'll help. Breathe while I get you some water Deary" and have it actually inspire something in the sad person to slow down, to leave, to drain out with all the tubwater. That would be ideal, and a completely amazing thing.
Thanks.
Your son
28 January 1934
Dear Unfriendly Friend:
You’d have loved this:
Home now, and the cat hopped out of her little box that she had been crying in the whole trip down, her little paw poked and grabbed out of one of the little breathing holes we’d cut in it and I could see her pink nose twitching and moving and smelling and wondering "why is everything so fast and moving?" Dad drove slower and said "don't worry baby kitten" and it was a nice little unforced show of affection from him that I had never seen. In fact, I don’t ever remember being told "don’t worry" about anything. I mean, that shouldn’t reflect poorly on him as a father or anything, it was just strange to see him show a little bit of care for a cat he usually is luke-warm, if not utterly cold, towards. He doesn't hate her, he just likes his dog Baron Wiggles better. It was very neat, and also heartbreakingly cute at the same time. "Hush up little cat!" he said, and slowed down for her sake. I was hungry though so we sped up.
Do you even know where we were driving to? Do you care? No. And, no.
Again, it is always no.
You’ll warm up eventually.
Fondly,
Yours
3 November 1934
They've been folded up and handed out the past few years and it seems as though my little basket of bouquets has all been spent. The last few have been reproductions of reproduced reproductions, and all integrity gets lost when copying a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy and though the original message is still quite the same, all heart and meat to it is mislaid completely. The creases were there, along every letter and fold; the edges frayed and losing shape. It still spelled out "I’m sorry" but it was far past its expiration date.
Another one flew out of my mouth just the other night and almost didn’t even land near his ears--- the window was open as we were driving across the state line into Nevada. It was the first one that made me want to cry as it came out, I meant it more than ever, and I felt extremely bad for everything. He didn’t need it, he didn’t even want it, we were talking about old times and in all honesty, one was probably due for me instead, but being routine, I was the first to let it fly.
This made me retrace my steps and go through the files - there are metal cabinets piled to the ceiling each filled with folders of receipts from all the Apologies I have given, the bulk of which are dated between today and four years ago. An entire life of apologies compressed and spread across a very bland and depressing slice of time. I’d been apologizing to people on the bus for other travelers' bags (and even apologized to the luggage itself for being bumped by some inconsiderate elbow or knee). I said I was very sorry when a friend of mine ruined a party by throwing bottles and writing on things that didn’t belong to him. I even gave one up for what other people have been saying. To the moon for being late, to the sun for being early, for many things I have never touched or been touched by, I apologize for them all. One torn receipt is for an expensive apology: creating a fissure along the surface of a small girl's heart (as delicate and sweet as it was, it would not stop her bleeding.)
Now, I am unable to reproduce from the originals. I’ve run out. I’ve given them all away to people and situations that never even needed them, and the times they when were warranted, they were kept alive for a small time in their cage of rememberings, when they thought fondly of me, as someone who cared, not quite bitter about being rained on but still very, very soaked and soggy.
I've counted the ones I had pinned to my wall that have been given to me by others, I have them all pinned up there and they sit alone and so very solitary. The three I have received: One for her telling me "I didn’t mean to hurt you and I’m sorry.” The second, unmemorable as it may be - I was a very hurt eleven year old boy and he apologized until he was wet on the cheeks too and I was so angry that I spit at the sky. The last of them is see-through because it was only implied and hinted at but, still, its worth saving. Three isn't too impressive of a stack, but each of them meant something at the time, or still means something to this day, minute, or second.
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Letters, notes, and a lot of transit tickets. We are unsure what any of this material might say about the person who wrote it, but we are fairly certain (and somewhat optimistic) in our evaluation of what can be said about the person who reads it. We can say even more about the person who hates it, and more still about the person who loves it. At the Institute, we are constantly presented with data just like this: made and polished and handed over without an explanation. The problem is two-fold, and quite cumbersome to carry with just two hands: Who wrote this? Who will read it? These are questions we do not concern ourselves with, though we make attempts to make it look like we are concerned with these two specific questions. We're good at that.
