And...this was the next email I sent to the very same guy. We really did have a nice exchange of letters for awhile. This one was also sometime around late 2002/early 2003. Hopefully I've matured since then, in some ways at least. I did actually buy a pair of Banana Republic khakis after writing it (for shame!)

Dear _____,
However I try to relate to the dull and conformist masses, I have no desire to become one of them, and keep the distinction clear. Despite others’ claims of my elitism and snobbery, I refuse to see trashy Hollywood movies that I know that I’ll despise, to pretend that I’m not a feminist, to use language that simply repeats what others mindlessly express with no hint of individuality or creativity, or to be happy about corporate America as long as I get my Starbucks coffee and Banana Republic khakis. In a review of a movie called “Ghost World,” the writer described one of the main characters as a “maladjusted searcher for authenticity,” and that’s sometimes how I see myself (when I’m feeling especially pretentious). So, in kind of a fucked up way, I try to seek out authenticity in others, to get them to reveal to me what others do not accept: the ugly, the shameful, the disgusting, the misunderstood beauty that is not deemed acceptable by our current social standards. I apologize if I’m repeating myself…this is a song that I sing quite often, and I suspect that I may have already tired your ear with it.

Anyway, at the moment, I feel like the conflict is not so much whether to have bland friends or not, but whether to push my bland friends to talk about what interests me, rather than babble about gossip or about the weather or about celebrities. I tend to be somewhat passive in conversation, especially conversation in large groups…if I were to take more of an initiative, to push people to speak about topics that actually occupy my mind rather than make noise for the sake of forgetting how lonely we are…then maybe I’d find my friendships more fulfilling. Then again, I have tried pushing friends to talk about meaningful topics from time to time, with less than satisfying results. So maybe I’m fooling myself…maybe I would do better to turn to Camus after all…(I’m actually looking to read Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason first, in addition to all the other books that I have to finish, but Camus was an old favorite of mine back when I was taking French classes…his style is the complete opposite of mine, pithy but profound with brilliantly developed images, which both thrills and irritates me because I know that right now I can’t produce anything with such power.)

Your description of your love for travel and your desire to become a “wandering scholar” made me smile, at least partly due to recognition. I spent some of this past summer wandering around the south of France, and it felt like my mind cleared and I gained so much interest into my surroundings, so much insight into myself and the world around me. I became fascinated with every detail I encountered; each movement, each person was a revelation. I completely understand how the world becomes simpler and more beautiful, and the people become less threatening and more fascinating, as you described. How incredible it is to lose yourself in observation…life as art, really. I felt the return of my inner voice…after being quiet for so long, sublimated as I tried not to think too deeply during this past year, it reemerged with a vengeance, refusing to shut up and to stop its gushing stream of ideas and images and dreams. My mind was so fertile, writhing excitedly with newfound activity, after its too-long hibernation. My existence weaved in and out of the existences of others, as I made transitory connections with other people, whether it was shared appreciation for a painting, or flirtation over mysterious alcoholic concoctions under strings of lights, or sex in someone’s cluttered, smoky apartment. And rather than feeling alienated and alone, I felt myself melt into my surroundings, and felt more comfortable and free than I had in ages.

During my last day in France, I went to the Maeght Foundation museum in a tiny medieval town close to Nice. The museum itself was founded and designed by Chagall, Braque, and Miro, among others. Right by the museum there was the Saint Bernard Chapel, a tiny wooden construction with a room filled with a wooden carved crucified Christ, originally Spanish in origin, from the XV century. Above this sculpture there was a stained glass window designed by the Cubist artist Georges Braque, of a dove flying amidst a translucent purple landscape. I was never particularly struck by carved Christ faces that I have seen before, but something about this Spanish Christ pricked my eyes with tears. The most eloquent expression sorrow I had ever seen was somehow encompassed into that face, and I felt it in my bones. I sketched it in my journal (rather decently, too). Later that evening, after I had returned to Nice, I decided to go to the Cimiez monastery, where one can supposedly see a beautiful flower garden that overlooks the Baie des Anges. I discovered upon getting off the bus that a jazz festival was taking place in the monastery that evening, and decided to go, on a whim. An excerpt from my frantic journal writings during the event: “As I lay down against the trunk of the olive tree in the Cimiez jardin, my plastic bag filled with all the things I deemed necessary for the day serving as a pillow, I listened peacefully to the jazz music played onstage. There were men playing brass horns and guitars with simultaneous precision and indulgent abandon. It was by far the most expert and soaring jazz of the night, and after I had wandered up close to the stage to get a sense of what was visually happening, I felt free to just lie down and look up at the sky, the silver green leaves twirling and fluttering in the gentle evening wind. My eyes were half-lidded as I looked occasionally at the faces before me who were watching the concert; I was experiencing the music by watching their faces. Their expressions and their movements gave me enough information as to what was happening on stage. And then I noticed one particular face – it was the Christ face on the cross in the Saint Bernard Chapel earlier today. His face was so handsome and arresting that I had to fight from gulping him whole with my eyes, instead taking discrete little sips, so he wouldn’t notice how taken I was with him. He was so utterly and completely transfixed by the music – his body was possessed, wiggling his arms and legs, sometimes fluttering his fingers, like he was a dangling marionette. There’s little more beautiful to me than a person dancing without inhibitions, and he was radiantly beautiful at that moment. In contrast to his Jesus face, he had a ’70’s hairdo, flipped out by the cheekbones and curly to the shoulders, and was wearing a blue tank top with horizontal stripes, and odd red pants that poofed a tiny bit and stopped below his knees. I got the sense that he was gay from the way that he looked and was looked at by men who bumped into him or walked closely by him. My homoerotic ecstatically dancing Jesus. I felt like I could die right then, in the shelter of that olive tree with the silvery green ribbons floating above me, the mournfully faced yet radiant gay Jesus dancing frenetically before me, sweet intricate jazz sliding into my ears, smooth as butter. I felt warm and utterly at peace, my eyelids heavily obscuring my vision, the colors melting into each other but swirling graceful lines still distinguishable, and my mouth in a blissful half-smile, which may have been enigmatic to anyone who chose to look as (s)he stepped over my limbs strewn about the tree’s base.”

Shit. You really suckerpunched me with your description of your relationship with the girl who had such a predilection for asshole boyfriends. You started off with some bitterly sharp humor which made me laugh despite myself, and then you swerved into such gorgeous poetry that my breath was taken away. I imagine that you’ll continue to vacillate back and forth between the two extremes you described, of needing and exchanging vs. withdrawing and observing, before you settle on one or the other. It seems that when you (or I, or anyone) begin with one extreme, it seems so perfect and lovely and dandy, but then gets tiresome as you start to think more and more about the other extreme, which becomes more and more attractive…and eventually you switch over to the other extreme, and start all over again. Ideally, you could merge these two extremes which right now seem so diametrically opposed, but if there’s a way to do it, I sure as fuck haven’t found it yet. Still, let’s save the cynicism for when we’ve amassed more wrinkles and creaky joints, and continue to search for that elusive balance…or some other alternative that works better and leaves us fulfilled and satisfied. Or maybe this sort of pendulum is necessary for growth, for change, for movement…who would want to be so fulfilled and satisfied that life becomes static? (I remember as a five year old girl lying in my bed at night, unable to sleep, thinking about death, I was horrified at the thought of heaven and eternal life…because there would be no change. Heaven would be always perfect, for all eternity. Every day would be exactly, blissfully, the same, and there would be no end. For whatever reason, this terrified me more than the idea that our lives would end with death and our bodies would rot away). But then again, who cares if life is static, if you’re fulfilled and satisfied? Gah. Experience, as you say, may lead to more answers, or at least more questions which may flesh out the dilemma.

There’s something about Belle and Sebastian that works well with traveling through England…I listened to them constantly when I was wandering around Edinburgh, and their songs perfectly complemented the green rolling hills and densely situated gray Victorian (or so I’ve been told) buildings soaked with rain. My signature song is “Judy and the Dream of Horses” from the “If you’re feeling sinister” album…I constantly sing it out loud in the car, or walking in hospital hallways as I go from patient to patient, pretending that I have a star and a parrot on my shoulders. You may also want to check out the Reindeer Section, which is a hodgepodge band filled with members of Belle and Sebastian, Snow Patrol, and others. I think that “If Everything Fell Quiet” is one of the most beautiful yet simple love songs that I’ve ever heard.

I hope that you haven’t completely abandoned your admittedly idealistic vision of how architecture may better the world. I imagine that through your studies you’ll continue to develop your philosophy and hone your ideas regarding what you want to accomplish with architecture, and how you can use your skills to improve quality of life (such a popular catchphrase in the medical community, ugh). And how architecture can perhaps truly revolutionize the way we interact with our environment and with each other in the confines of our shared environment. I won’t write too much more about this since you mentioned wanting to take a break from thinking about it, but you’ve certainly impressed upon me the tremendous power that architects have to shape our lives. Although there is the risk of catastrophe you mentioned, I perhaps naively feel like risks need to be taken in order to improve the shitty states of existence here in the States in this day and age, whether in rundown urban wastelands or cookie cutter suburban hell…perhaps some are complacent with their current conditions, but how could they know any better when their souls and their free-thinking minds have been sucked out of them? I am assuming that I know better than the majority of this country’s population, but, well…look at the approval ratings of our current president. And the top five movies at the box office. Alas, my snobbery and elitism make themselves known once again.

--Me