I’m back, my dear Rosslyn. And, yes, it’s been a minute, as cooler cats say these days (as if sixty seconds and sixty weeks are one and the same.)
It’s been long. Too long. Months. I’ve repeatedly postponed and delayed our correspondence. I’ve dithered. I’ve distracted, myself and others, with pretty pictures and poems, field notes, flights of fancy.
I’d best not burnish my bluster with bullshit excuses. Better instead to forge ahead. To resume our correspondence. With haste. For the time of reckoning is advancing swiftly. And I’m behind schedule, behind where I’d hoped to find myself this June 2025, almost three years into the quest I commenced on August 1, 2023 with an unceremonious launch. A relaunch, really, or a reboot 1) of my creative writing practice, 2) of Rosslyn Redux as a blog-based multidisciplinary story, 3) of my inquiry into why and how your historic rehabilitation took on such an outsized importance for us, and 4) of my emotional and psychological untethering from you. Now, almost three years into daily old house journaling, I feel good about the first two. Confident. Accomplished. Excited. Optimistic. I’ve dug deep into our all consuming Rosslyn romance, but I’ve still not succeeded with number three. There’s more to do. Much more. And number four, well, that’s been a rollercoaster at best. Can a rollercoaster untether? Spooky thought. Maybe minimize metaphor for a moment… I’m still pretty preliminary with untethering, Rosslyn. Letting go of you is a work in progress. Easier anticipated. Easier planned. Easier discussed ad nauseam with Susan. But not easy. Not by a long shot. And not successful. Not yet.
Time to change that. Start changing that. *TRY* to start changing that…
When I paused to reflect some thirty months into this introspective journey I conceded that this was (and is) less a logical narrative than a heartfelt reckoning. Of my/our entangled dynamics with you, with Susan, and with place and time. Rosslyn, I had come to understand that you haven’t just been the backdrop for our life over the last twenty years. You’ve been a vibrant part of our life, a comforting and confounding character in our story. You’ve been our home, and you’ve been part of our family. You’ve rehabilitated us even as we believed that we were rehabilitating you. We were. You were. And it’s been the most remarkable adventure in my life, a life of many adventures.
So today’s dispatch is a return to my epistolary promise, Rosslyn. The beginning of an untethering à la “Dear John“. This isn’t goodbye. Not yet. For now we remain interlocutors. We remain family. I hope. For at least a little while longer.
We’ve been in conversation for years now — me trying to guide the story; you seductively resisting closure — but recently I’ve been becoming tongue-tied. I’ve been stalling mid thought, mid sentence, mid gasp. I’m grasping at feelings, at ideas, but not quite reaching them. Breathtaking poignance, the ache of gratitude, the outline of some elusive truth evanescing like a shadow of a cloud passing overhead. I realize now that you’ve always occupied this liminal place. Part home. Part mirror. Part witness. Part collaborator. Part sanctuary. Part mystery.
So where does that leave us? In conversation. Interlocutors parsing past and possibility. No comforting arc; no final draft. Only attempting. Essaying. Circling. And perhaps that’s enough for now. This letter is less conclusion than invitation and deliberation. As so often before, today’s missive is a love letter, for I’ve loved you fiercely. But it’s a love letter with a tremor in its voice and a question in its heart. I’ve always asked so much of you. And I am still listening. Wondering.
What do you think?