Writing Your Christmas Note

While everyone is opening presents, little sweetheart, I’m taking this time to write you a Christmas note and slip it into your stocking. There’s quite a few in there, I do this every year. Our stockings hang together, side by side, on the mantel. And your mom has added a stocking this year for Sylvia, too.

In the note I tell you lots of things you already know - how much I love and miss you, all that’s happened this year (which I know you know because your presence is always near and knowing, watching, guiding me).

I find myself thinking now and always of our Christmas here together eight years ago. How we sat together on the sofa and I wept with joy and gratitude to be at your side.

Happy Christmas, little sweetheart. Love you forever.

Your Mom's Birthday

Today is your Mom’s birthday, little sweetheart. I have it circled on the calendar and I think it’s very likely that I am more excited about it than she.

I love your parents, little sweetheart. They are so very dear to me. And I think doubly so because when I do things for them it reminds me of the joy I had in doing little things for you. Cooking for you or surprising you with a gift. Maybe noticing how some little something caught your eye and making a note of it so I could get it and give it to you right away.

There’s a beautiful catalogue that your Mom has gotten for years and that I saw early on when I was visiting them quite a while ago. I got myself on their mailing list and I often look for things there I think she might like. It’s a kind of vintage Victorian sundries catalogue filled with little antiquities and beautiful prints here all the girls look like you as if you’d just stepped out of the late 1800’s.

I got her what looks to be a pretty painting of a kind of angel/siren keeping watch on a distant shore, a lute by her side. And it’s also lighted - it has a little lamp behind the canvas. I also got her a DVD of that movie I told you about, that documentary about Peter Bogdanovich. And I found a beautiful card, a New Yorker cover that’s an illustration of a girl whose red tresses are a kaleidoscope of monarch butterflies. It’s magical and so very much looks like you. So does the angel, of course. I wrote her a long letter, too and put it inside. And there’s a lovely company I found called Bake Me A Wish, that makes and delivered birthday cakes via UPS overnight packed in dry ice to keep them fresh. If I’m not in California to make your parents a cake on their birthday, I always send one - chocolate for your dad, vanilla bean, like this one, for your mom.

I’m going to give her call in an hour or so after I know she’s around and sing her Happy Birthday.

All these things make me feel so very close to you, my love. You are Goodness itself and when I act in kindness and love I feel your presence double fold. All redounds to you. With all my love forever. 

Secret Dream

Little sweetheart, I had a dream last night/this morning part of which is a recurring one.

Also, it was one of those dreams where when you’re with someone, the person is really almost two different people in the same person. That happened twice in the dream. In the beginning of what I remember, I was in a car with some combination of JFK and your brother Jesse. I'd just come from having talked with your dad who was excited and overjoyed about a trip we were, all of us together, about to go on with Jesse, himself.

Back in the car, I’m with Jesse/JFK. And he’s telling me some secret something that he’s also written down in its entirety in a sealed letter he gives to me. After he tells me, we’re sitting at a traffic light. He says bye for now and gets out.

When the light changes, I’m in the drivers seat (I think I may have been the entire time but I’m not sure) but it’s pushed all the way up and I can’t see or feel what I’m doing. This is the part of the dream I now recognize as recurrent - behind the wheel of a car I don’t know how or cannot control, having forgotten how to drive or simply impaired in trying to do so. But I try anyway - take a leap of faith and somehow get things straightened out, maneuvering through the danger and traffic. I get there.

“There” turns out to be someplace beautiful, ceremonial, official - The White House? - where I try it give the letter to someone, again a combination of persons in one person. Something like both Jackie Kennedy and your mom. She’s a little more like your mom than Jackie but still… She’s wary about taking the letter. It’s for me, she says. But you - in the very best part of the dream that I can still feel the most vividly and the most tactilely, the feeling lingers - you are there behind me with your hands on my shoulders, pushed up close, your body against mine, your cheek to my my cheek, your breath in my ear, encouraging me.

I tell your mom/Jackie what’s in the letter. You are urging me on. It is important and resonant to us all. We all need to know the letter’s contents. It’s for each and all of us. A secret we need to know and hold dear. It’s good news and explains everything.

Naturally - much like the Arthur Miller dream where he put his arm around me and told me he had three things to tell me about playwrighting - when I woke, I couldn’t remember the message, the content.

But, perhaps that’s not important. What is, I think, was how happy your dad was. I think he already knew. And that you were there so palpably that I can still feel your hands on my shoulder. I know exactly what your touch feels like and this was it.

It’s the best dream I’ve had in ages, solely for that. Thank you, little sweetheart. Always be with me. I suspect you already are. Closer than I can imagine.

Letters From Abroad

Little sweetheart, we're nearing the release of the new album, Dream Together, which you, of course, are a major part of. Not just because your vocals both sung and spoken can he heard within but because several of the songs literally came to me in dreams with you. I know you sent them. I know you're doing your best to reach me, comfort me, urge me on. As one of those songs quite clearly says, another one that came to me intact from you in The Forever, She Hears You Calling.

I'm listening today to the second pass of the a possible final mastering of the album, little sweetheart, and waiting on corrections in the galleys for our artwork. Meantime, we got a lovely letter from a woman in Poland who has been a fan since the double-album, of, for and about you - Of Love and Loss. She said she was looking forward to the new one and also had these very nice things to say, which I'll leave here below.

It's so very true, little sweetheart - I want to do everything I can to honor and be close to you.

Here's what our friend in Poland had to say. She starts out talking specifically about our last album, Electric Hymnal, and then somewhat more generally of the albums as a whole...

"...I listened immediately
some melodies made me feel good.. some I remember made me feel anxious. Which is good...
because no song left without moving me in a way. It is amazing... I really really like it. Like all the albums and covers and music and lyrics... it is a story
not just random tracks to make an album.
It is like a book.  It is a book of poems,
feelings. This is the most important and the most beautiful thing in the world.
To have something to say
and to do it beautifully, to touch peoples lives.
It is a gift. Thank God for such amazing form of self expression.
How you can convey the message to people... talk about your life, about Summer to people in this artistic way..."

It's all for you, little sweetheart. Always and forever. Until that day I may join you. May it be soon. Very very soon, indeed. With all my love...

For You. Always.

On my way home from meditation service last night, little sweetheart, I saw the prettiest little pair of pajamas I think you would like. They were sorta light pink almost white but with a kind of rose hue too and they had double decker buses on them. I immediately thought how I'd so very much like to get them for you. And that made me remember how much I liked doing things like that. Getting little presents for you. Maybe I'll get these and start a new or resume an old tradition and just set them aside with a nice letter or card for you telling you all about it and saving it for you. I think I might do that. Love you forever.

Letters...

Little Sweetheart, we got the nicest note today from someone who has read and cared about our story and so I'm going to post it here below. I love telling people about you, my darling, so it's very nice indeed when someone understands how very much you mean to me and how I long, with faith & love, to be with you again, soon and forever:  

"I just wanted to let you know - I don't know Summer, or you for that matter, but I read what you write about her quite often. I have never been moved to tears by a post before, but whenever you write about her, I am. She must have been an amazing woman. And I am so happy that you experienced a love like that in your life. It ended much too soon and I am, beyond words, so sorry for that. For her, not as if I could speak for her, but let me say thank you for loving her so wonderfully, perfectly, and completely. It's so beautiful, even to get a glimpse of. If anything, know I'm wishing you the best from a thousand miles away. I hope you are doing well, my friend."

-anonymous

All That You Taught Me, My Sweetheart...

My sweetheart, I've been meaning to post this for a while. Back in May, I heard from the daughter of an old friend of mine that she was about to graduate from High School. I sent her a small gift and this letter in which I try to relate as best I can the very important things that you, my true love, taught me: 

May 28, 2014

Thank you so much for sending me the announcement about your graduating high school. That’s terrific news and a fine achievement. Congratulations!

I know your parents are very proud of you. I know they always are. I grew up with your dad and met your mom shortly thereafter when we were all twenty-somethings in DC. I’ll do my best here not to say anything embarrassing about them and I think I’m on firm ground in simply saying that they could hardly wait until you and your brother came into the world. Your mother in particular was over the moon at the thought of your arrival. And even though, strangely (the world is strange), you and I have never met, I’ve seen little glimpses of your growing up through the years of family Christmas cards and in the eyes of your parents, full of love and pride for you.

I won’t go on too long here. I just want to say something I hope might be of nominal resonance on this occasion. Grown ups are always fumbling for a word of wisdom to pass along, never more so than on a day like today. Please forgive us. We mean well. When your dad and I graduated, I remember, we were rather underwhelmed by these same sort of remarks. It was a hot day and the event was held on the football field. I think more than a few us had nothing but our swim trunks on beneath our cap and gowns, keen to get the whole thing over with, have a dip in a neighbors pool and drink a million underage beers. The commencement speaker was the local Circuit Court judge and I think we actually thought he might not be too bad but something got lost on the way to podium and he didn’t exactly inspire. At a key point in his speech, he challenged us to “remember two words”. Mingo Guana, our classmate and all-around not-so-wiseass, shouted out “Guilty!”, to general laughter and uproar. It was stupid as hell -the judge did say “two words”, after all- and somehow perfect.  Judge Whatshisname wrapped things up- his two words were “thank you”, remember to say “thank you” as you go through your life (a perfectly good directive, not terribly stirring, maybe, but…) – caps flew in the air (except for our friend Kris – you may have met him – who tore off his gown and tossed that instead) and everyone went on their way, merry or otherwise.

I hope your own Commencement comes off a bit better. I suppose you could do worse. But I hope. So, I’ll wrap up my own remarks here and let you get on with it, right after this brief, humble effort to improve on what an earlier generation tried to foist upon your dad and I.

Boneheaded bonhomie notwithstanding, Mingo was almost right – we should be able to get it down to one word. And I have one in mind. It’s “love”.

Love. Let it be your guide. Find what you love and build your life around it. Do the thing, the things, that make you happy. Do what you love. Find love. Give love. Live in love. Live for love. Hold those you love to you with all your might. In Shakespeare’s words, “grasp them to you with hoops of steel”. As our lives unfold, we find ourselves met with enormous challenges, difficulties, sometimes far more than we think we could ever bear.  Moments of great giddy joy comingled with heartaches and disappointments. Mistakes we may have a hard time ever forgiving ourselves for. But whatever may, I promise you, Grace, the one thing none of us will ever regret is having loved too much. Or too often. Or with too open of a heart. Love. Deep into my life now, there are few things I can say I know with certainty. But for this: we are here to love.

Congratulations to you, dear friend. May good fortune attend your every endeavor. With love…

Yours,

Michael Louis Serafin-Wells

New York City