Good Morning Jessicca...

Letter to My Daughter
Sunday, 10 March

Sarajevo

Good Morning Jessicca…

Today was clear, sunny and just about warm.  It seems like winter has passed and, for me, almost like a flu has lifted.  I celebrated in small ways, opening windows, shedding several pounds of clothes when I took the dog for a walk and daydreaming about squirting kids with a hose.  I feel like I’m on a roll.  Friday I finished a drawing.  Thursday I went to the theater to see Silver Lining Playbook with Bradley Cooper, Jennifer Lawrence and Robert De Niro.  I think it’s supposed to be a drama.  It does have some pretty intense scenes.  I came away thinking of it, though, as the best romantic love story since Shakespeare in Love.  In fact, I might have liked it better than Shakespeare.  It’s close.  Bradley Cooper was very good but Jennifer Lawrence was an absolute knock-out in her role.  I’d bet serious money you've already seen it so I won’t dwell on the story.  I just came away thinking it was the best chick flick in my memory.

Sarajevo, detail

What a relief to find there is a joyous side to love.  Lately I’ve been feeding on a diet of Bergman and Strindberg, northern Europeans with a deep melancholy when it comes to relations between the sexes.  What’s with these Swedish guys, anyway?  OK, I can’t say I don’t know what they are talking about but I still enjoy a day where sunshine not only breaks through the clouds but absolutely burns the sky clear of any dark thoughts.  It’s good to occasionally feel 23 when you know darn well you’re 64.  It’s great seeing a young actress like Jennifer Lawrence light up the screen playing someone complex, vivacious, troubled, fiery, conniving, loving and stunningly beautiful in one huge hay-maker of a movie role.  Forget my cholesterol, stiff joints and sclerotic heart, for me, here was a joyous outside the body experience.  I think I already mentioned Bradley Cooper and De Niro were very good, as well.  They were.

It was a fun movie.  I had a good time.

Sarajevo, detail

Yeah, so I did a drawing.  I call it Sarajevo basically because it’s an enjoyable word to let roll off my tongue.  It’s got all these brilliant yellow and red lines, cutting tight jagged corners and, more or less, filling this sky that has people in it where you wouldn't think they should be inhabiting but they seem oblivious to it all because they are kind of like Zen stick figures too absorbed by being lifted away from the incredible grimy strife that dominates existence down below.  Then there’s maybe this underworld that has its own flavor of a watery type serenity, if you don’t mind drowning and sinking deep beneath any form of human memory, written, oral or otherwise.  I say maybe because I don’t really know.  I don’t understand it because, probably, there isn't anything at all to understand.  It’s just what I decide to do when I have the free time and some paper free to fill with whatever percolates to my brain’s surface, gets digested and slides down my right arm to my hand where it drips into my pen and falls in stringy lines across the page.  That’s one way of putting it.  I doodle.  That’s more accurate and wonderfully succinct. 

Sarajevo, detail

I’m writing this while it is still Saturday.  It’s always been my favorite day of the week.  Someone is running their lawnmower.  That brings back memories that go all the way back to my being a kid – a television addict, undiagnosed, but clear to anyone with two eyes and a brain.  There wasn't anything I wouldn't watch.  I started each day starring at the TV test pattern, waiting for Channel Ten to officially sign on for another brilliant broadcast day of whatever it was that would preoccupy my mind for thirty minutes segments at a time.  Speaking of time, mine is about up.  Don’t forget to patronize the advertisers listed to the right of my letter.  They helped to bring this email to you for free.

Love,

         Dad