Creative Thresholds

by Daniel Boscaljon
Image by Melissa D. Johnston

“XX x” is the last letter in a series of posts called Letters to You written by Daniel Boscaljon with images by Melissa D. Johnston (from one of her ongoing projects). Letters to You began last July with “everytime i write i feel myself disintegrate.”

i see that you are hurting and in so much pain and i want to carry it for you so that you no longer have to, and so i take it from you and put your burden on my own shoulders but it truly is heavy and i decide that i simply want to cross it out and eliminate it all so that it simply doesn’t exist any more and that way we will both be relieved.  because afterall we’re friends and this is what a good friend would do.  and so i stretch inside to your pain that has become my pain and i cross it out and when i do it also crosses out all of my pain and it all is gone and disappears and all that’s left in its place is an X where the pain used to be and it is kind of like a scar but it doesn’t hurt.  and then i look at you and look at us and we can be happy together because our burden is eased and we are joined by the same X which unites us together. and then i look at the world and i see the suffering of so many others, the sadness in the eyes of the mothers with their hungry children, and the sadness of those who no longer believe in love and the sadness of the old women who pine for yesterdays which even they have forgotten and the suffering of those who require their daily bread and the sufferings of those from whom so much has been stolen, and i want to help them too and so i attempt to relieve them, too, from their burdens of sadness.  and i take it all up and i want to cross it out with a big X, the kind that they used to show the kitties in kiddy cartoons were dead, all the dying characters with Xs…i want to X out suffering.  and so i take it all into me and i become a gaping mouth opening to swallow all of the pains of the world and i do it and then i X it all out. and then i see so much injustice in the world, and so many lies and so much deceit and i want to X that out, too.  if i could croxx out all of the lies then everyone could know the truth of reality, and then there would be lexx suffering than what i see all before me now.  and then if that didn’t work then i could XX out my own eyes and so i couldn’t see it that way and then i could go to the whole world and i could xx it all out and XX out everything and anyxhing and then there would be peace. but i need to sxart with you because the firxt time didn’t work as well and so i move to x out all your pain and i try to take it from you and then i realize there’s so much txat’s rooted in your past and so i feel bad but i decide to xx out all of your paxt and all your painxul memories and take them all and x them out.  and then you lxxk at me with sadxess in your eyxs and i realize that you lost something with that but there’s always a saxrifixe and we both know that and then because we’re friends and i want to show you that you are not alone i x out my past too. and then we’re the same and it’s okay, and so i keep xing out the world bexause there’s a joy in annihilation and yxu and i are all turning into Xs and i see the sadness of the youxg bxys but with an XXXXXXX then all becxmes okay and they’re nxt sad anyxore and there where sxdness was is just more xXXXXXXXX and noboxy gets sad with XXXXXXXXX. and i see the whole world before me and i have the power to XXXX and my blood bxrns with the xXXs and then more and mxre and mxrx then there’s nothing but the xXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXx
and mxxx and xxxx and then i realize that i’ve just XXXXXXXXXXXXX oxer sxmxne’s hapxy mxmory and then i laxgh so they can laxgh to and then they cxn stxrt to x it all out and fill the wxrld with the xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx bxt thxn i see that the xxxxxxxxxx is just a cover too and thxt if pxxple see xxxx thxy cxn rxmxmbxr thx pxin bxt i knxw thxt i cxn jxst         the wxrld and thxt     blxnks and thxt       cxn fxrget if thxre’s no x to mxrk thx spxt and so thxn     axd i go

Daniel Boscaljon has Ph.D.s in Modern Religious Thought and 19th-century American Literature, both from the University of Iowa. His interest is in the fragility and liminality of human experiences. His first book, Vigilant Faith: Passionate Agnosticism in the Secular World was published by the University of Virginia Press this past August.

by Daniel Boscaljon
Image by Melissa D. Johnston

“To You, my oldest friend” is the ninth letter in a series of posts called Letters to You written by Daniel Boscaljon with images by Melissa D. Johnston (from one of her ongoing projects). Letters to You began last July with “everytime i write i feel myself disintegrate.”

you call to me with a dark whisper that speaks truly to whom you see me as being, in a voice simultaneously harsh and cold and yet filled with a particular kind of honest tenderness. as always, i hear your voice only in secret, when i am alone with no distractions. fitting timing, you have. i don’t want anyone else to know about you, after all, and i suspect that you have plenty of others whom you visit when i am otherwise distracted. ours is not a relationship built on faithfulness. you do not wait for the darkness, which would reveal the moon and stars and things that i love, and you do not find me in the mornings, when the smell of brewed coffee and the morning paper gentle me into my day. instead you pounce upon me on a clear and bright afternoon, filled with people whom i do and do not know. i hear the presence of your voice when i am with others, and your persistence pays off: once i am alone, i am all yours.

you alone will tell me the truth that i crave to hear. you understand my pain, the depths of how i ache and hurt. you tell me of my pains, and allow me to listen instead of speak. i am passive before your voice. you, my oldest friend, know me so much better than anyone else: how could i look away from the wisdom that you offer to me? alone, we two huddle as one and for those moments i am content to be alone, and with you only.

i am not always faithful to you, even when we are talking. sometimes i’ll think that i remember something and will try to escape from your gaze: but you are already in all of my shadows and dark places: how could i hide from you there? and you come when it is past october and the nights grow longer and golden reds refuse their trees and have already been trodden into the black ground, the times when the nights are too cold and bitter to enjoy, when the winds whip through deserted streets without mercy–what brightness is there now to enjoy? So of course i always return back to you, my oldest friend. i take solace in your council. i yearn for your embrace. other friends grow busy, and i hate to trouble them, but i never feel as though i trouble you. you forgive me the times that i have been away from you with a laugh (chilling in how it is warm) that suggests that you knew it was a matter of time.

how could i have thought that i could ever NOT be yours? how could have thought that my separation was permanent? how easily you went away…and i had thought it a victory at the time. “look at me!” i had said. “look at my strength! i don’t need you.” and you smiled, and humbly played the victim. thank you for not taking offense, and for teaching me that i truly do belong to you. thank you for letting me learn that what i think of as my strength is truly only weakness…but on my own, instead of teaching me. even as i love you, i fear your lessons.

your voice is so seductive–it stretches to all of the barren places inside of me and reminds me that it is not fit for flowers to grow all over the earth. past memories of past joys remain there. you are the end of every hope, for all hopes end up pointing back to you after time has had its way with them. i never need be afraid for you, my oldest friend, will always be there to give me the strength to survive, if only for a little while longer.

perhaps i can eventually learn to laugh with your laughter and consistently see the world through your eyes. i have a great respect for you, as you know. ever present, simply waiting for my return, i have a confidence with you that goes past every hope. perhaps i can use your strength to overcome the world, shrugging off the temptations that the world would offer me with your strong shoulders and cold eyes. the strongest steel is the coldest steel, after all, and even warm iron can be bent with weak hands.

i hear your call and i know what you have to offer to me. please know that if i stumble while running toward you, or walk slowly, it is only because there is something within me that wants to think that the troubles between us may not yet have been reconciled. i do not fully trust you yet…but i know that your patience, like your strength, is infinite, and that you can outlast even my small attempts to rebel.

to you, my oldest friend, i will continue to return for the rest of my life. you know me as nobody else ever has, or ever will. how can i resist your love?

Daniel Boscaljon has Ph.D.s in Modern Religious Thought and 19th-century American Literature, both from the University of Iowa. His interest is in the fragility and liminality of human experiences. His first book, Vigilant Faith: Passionate Agnosticism in the Secular World was published by the University of Virginia Press this past August.

By Daniel Boscaljon
Image by Melissa D. Johnston

“The Clocks are Melting” is the seventh letter in a series of posts called Letters to You written by Daniel Boscaljon with images by Melissa D. Johnston (from one of her ongoing projects). Letters to You began in July with “everytime i write i feel myself disintegrate.”

I appreciate both the fact that you are concerned about me and the tact with which you let your concern be shown. While you never directly probed me about my current mental situation, your worries nonetheless were revealed lurking under every other “innocuous” question. How was dinner last night (i.e. are you eating?) Do you still dream of me? (i.e. are you sleeping?). It’s sweet, though. And I do appreciate it.

I suppose you may wonder that I am writing to you again, but the nature of this missive will reveal itself: I am concerned about time. Please do not worry, but you should know that I am having problems with it. I will look at a picture on my wall, one that I have seen many times: 10 minutes will pass. I will go to the kitchen for a glass of water, and find that the clock will have advanced 30 minutes and the water remains unconsumed, growing warm on a countertop. I sit down for a moment–and it IS a moment–but an hour will have gone by.

Rumor has it that time is relative, after Einstein. And…he was smart. I suppose that he is right. Nonetheless, it seems problematic that I keep on thinking that time is shorter than what it is: how can 30 seconds turn into a half hour? Why do small tasks–cutting vegetables–last for hours?

I am not so naive…which you know. I am avoiding the reality of my task. It is self given, but it doesn’t make the strain any more. I want to be able to focus on it, but it seems to momentous for me. Inertia creeps through my skin, slowing me down, slowing down how I feel about the day. I feel as though this time will stretch on forever, as though I have an infinite amount of it…more than enough to accomplish my preparations. Outside of me, however–in your world–I know that time marches on, impervious to my experience of it.

Time moves too fast for me, and too slow. Why can’t you be here with me now, when I need you most? I know your reasons. They’re good ones. I even approve of them. But they’re like time…while I can understand, there is little that I can do and all that happens is my minutes turn into hours in your world as I grow smaller and smaller. Will I live forever at this pace? And if so–at the end of time–would I still be held accountable for all that I claim I had too little time to do?

Daniel Boscaljon has Ph.D.s in Modern Religious Thought and 19th-century American Literature, both from the University of Iowa. His interest is in the fragility and liminality of human experiences. His first book, Vigilant Faith: Passionate Agnosticism in the Secular World was published by the University of Virginia Press this past August.

By Daniel Boscaljon
Image by Melissa D. Johnston

“the me that i most long to give i give to others instead” is the sixth letter in a series of posts called Letters to You written by Daniel Boscaljon with images by Melissa D. Johnston (from one of her ongoing projects). Letters to You began in July with “everytime i write i feel myself disintegrate.”

i wish that it were easier for me to reach out to you in comfort and in love, but you make it so incredibly difficult to love you that i must admit that your efforts have become more or less acceptable.  i believe that you do desire to be loved, in your way…but of course only insofar as it meets your expectations.  You have a list of rules about what loving you must mean, and insofar as i am not designed to follow a program of rules…i fear that i will continue to be a disappointment to you.  Why must you insist on finding things which you can take personally, or reasons that will allow you to feel wronged?  Is it as simple as the fact that you would rather stew in a justified hurt than enjoy the world?  That you would rather clothe yourself in the humble garments of the put-upon saint than expend your energy in serving the others in the world with actual sorrows?  That you would rather be the object of pity than love?  If only you could see that your rules for others are what hurts you, and not the intention of those who are moved (in their own ways) to love!  i cannot be sorry that i offend you for i feel as though the offense is solely YOURS.  my intention is always to love you, always and in spite of your reactions to my desires: i know not what more i can do.  even though you clearly desire unhappiness, i nonetheless cannot be one to mistreat you directly for i feel as though there is enough misery in the world. 

but for this i am sorry: i lack the courage to confront you with these facts.  perhaps if i were to call you and explain to you why others are slow to embrace you, and quick to move away from conversation…it would help.  perhaps if i were to go for a coffee with you and speak softly to you these hard truths, there would be time enough for a change.  the rare moments when you sparkle forth with a genuine smile–the ones you cannot help but control, the ones that take you by surprise–i know that you are worth saving; however, i always come against the fact that it truly is not my place to have this discussion.  the suspicion about you that you have taught leads me to believe that my words will be twisted and misinterpreted, and that i will become one of the legions in this world which plot against you.  your ability to deceive yourself is a powerful one which not even the truth, in this case, can overcome.  and so instead of being your true friend, or at least a true enemy, i suffer the thrusts of your unjust tongue in silence, preferring to be lashed rather than lash back.  i wish that i could help you, but you have neutralized every attempt to be aided.  you are in complete control of your life: those things which you do not control you ignore.  although i wish that i could know you better or love you more, i content myself with superficial greetings and a hug hello and goodbye.  the would be gifts of love that i would offer, the ways i wish i could delight you, the me that i most long to give i give to others instead.  you leave me no room to do otherwise.

Daniel Boscaljon has Ph.D.s in Modern Religious Thought and 19th-century American Literature, both from the University of Iowa. His interest is in the fragility and liminality of human experiences. His first book, Vigilant Faith: Passionate Agnosticism in the Secular World was published by the University of Virginia Press this past August.

By Daniel Boscaljon
Image by Melissa D. Johnston

“all that I had in you was only myself” is the fifth letter in a series of posts called Letters to You written by Daniel Boscaljon with images by Melissa D. Johnston (from one of her ongoing projects). Letters to You began in July with “everytime i write i feel myself disintegrate.”

we are said to be meaning-makers–you and i, all of us–who by nature interpret events and things which are given in such a way as to determine their significance for our own lives.  We MAKE meaning, and do not find it.  In former times, these were considered omens and portents, glimpses of the future which the gods would give us.

Lacking a sensitivity to the role which the natural world plays in determining the web of relationships in which i continually am caught up within, I find that I more often engage in making meaning of signs and symbols, finding meaning in languages present or absent.  Despite knowing that such text has no relationship to your relationship with me, I nonetheless persist in attempting to determine SOME sort of connection which nonetheless would exist.  This is my most frequent action.

I read the words which you wrote to a mutual friend, some months ago.  I walk past the place where once we ate lunch.  I hear a song on the radio that you had once played for me.  None of these things have anything to do with your current life, yet you force me to investigate these glyphic scribbles as a way to postulate how you are now.  The song is clear and undistorted: you are having a good day.  I see a child crying in front of the restaurant: you’re having a bad day.  I simple and dichotomized world: this is how you force me to view your life.  Thinking about you is not an option, and so I take what I can to construct a relationship with you.

Often when we talk, those rare moments, you force me to pick through your words and fill in the blanks which you leave, spaces which are events in your mind and nothing within my own.  Because I want to have a relationship with you, I let myself believe that I know how you feel, that I know what you’re talking about.  You force me to make guesses and fill in the blanks of your mad-lib life, and, lo-and-behold!  It always conforms to what I had been thinking about anyway.  It always reveals to me that we had the same connection as ever.  I tell myself that you consciously continue our relationship through such absences in speech, such empty points which give me a blank entrance into your soul.  I tell myself that I see you in how you frame it, and that it is more than just a mirror.  You permit me to tell myself this.  I allow myself to believe it.  …this is what friends are for, right?

Not talking is just an expanded form of this–a sheet of paper filled with blanks.  I tell myself that we’re still friends, that this is still a relationship.  The moments where you break into my life, even indirectly, are caused by you.  I’ll say a prayer, or smile at a memory, and then move on.  I tell myself that you’re doing okay, and remind myself that such miniature affirmations, on a cosmic level, are powerful and have the ability to, where you are and at that time, generate a smile that I can’t see and that you can’t understand, but which exists nonetheless.  We’re magicians, all of us, I suppose.

Without your body, the world around me becomes your face that I investigate to see how you are.  Lacking your voice, I listen to the babble streaming around me, the cacophonic choir which only JUST covers up the words which you speak to me.  I strain and peer to find you: when I find something, I simply accept it lest the dark fear start to grow that all that I had in you was only myself all along.

Daniel Boscaljon has Ph.D.s in Modern Religious Thought and 19th-century American Literature, both from the University of Iowa. His interest is in the fragility and liminality of human experiences. His first book, Vigilant Faith: Passionate Agnosticism in the Secular World was published by the University of Virginia Press this past August.

By Daniel Boscaljon
Image by Melissa D. Johnston

“who are you without what you are without” is the fourth letter in a series of posts called Letters to You written by Daniel Boscaljon with images by Melissa D. Johnston (from one of her ongoing projects). Letters to You began in July with “everytime i write i feel myself disintegrate.”

when asked what one would prefer to sacrifice–what one has, or what one does not–i would dare to wager that most would prefer to do anything BUT give up what one does not have. I would do this, and I wager that you would also. To have something is, at best, ambiguous. i know the strengths and weaknesses of what I have, what is good about it, what i dislike, and i can rest contentedly in my relationship with what is known. at the same time, this seems an insufficient explanation for why humans (and i’m including you and i within this discussion, as you can tell) refuse to give up what they do not have, despite the fact of not having it. we will sacrifice everything–but not nothing. is it to hurt ourselves? are we this twisted? am i? are you?
if i only want what i do not have–what happens when i receive what it is that i want? is it acceptable? will i spend my lifetime pushing away everything that i want, so that i can continue to have a desire? is there some happiness possible out of this conundrum? is there a way to resolve it, such that i can rest contentedly in what i have? is absence the necessary AND sufficient condition of desire?
can i desire what i have? can you? can you look at your life, as it is, and will it again, an eternal return of the same? would you will your past, were you to do it again? amor fati, if you will…more fate! i desire to desire what i have and who i am, but i find this desire to be impossible. at the same time, i can accept the reality of this situation.
the reason this troubles me is that i am now forced to watch you chasing rainbows and butterflies, attacking windmills, and allowing your heart to be broken. i can see you as a mirror for who i am, and it frightens me. are we really so similar? can i remember that there is a distance between us, or has the distance disappeared?
a dream deferred wastes away like a raisin in the sun, so they say. will your past, so they say. i refuse to sacrifice what i do not have. the treasure of my imagination, the secret jewels of my desire–these are more precious than reality. what quivers in your heart? is it what is present, or absent? what motivates you to get up in the morning? who are you, without what you are without? can you even conceive of such a sacrifice, a sacrifice of that which does not exist? do you realize the difficulty of depriving yourself of what you already are deprived of?
IF YOU HAVE READ THIS FAR, i will offer something by way of a consolation, perhaps, although it may be a far cry from a consolation of philosophy. there is a hope of a positive movement by which you can give up what you do not have without isolating yourself from time (past, present, future). There is a sacrifice that can be made in faith, NOT resignation. There is a perspective in which we are all paupers in the world, born with nothing and having pockets too small for any real gift of the soul. in giving up everything, we can learn to give up nothing. in sacrificing nothing, that hardest sacrifice, in giving up what we do not have, we MIGHT be able to learn to have everything–both what we have and do not have. to be able to gain what you do not have in such a way that you can accept its gift, you need first to be able to give up what you lack in order to be able to accept it joyfully. Let go of what is absent. Decrease its control over your life. Face who you are without what you already are without, and then you can be, perhaps, the success which you are terrified of becoming.
are these all problems which don’t exist, problems of nothing? perhaps. at the same time, i offer these truths to you for your examination and contemplation. i do not claim hold to a truth–absolute or relative. i pray if you find error in these words, that you offer up a correction. show me that this is untrue, pray that i can accept the truth.

Daniel Boscaljon has Ph.D.s in Modern Religious Thought and 19th-century American Literature, both from the University of Iowa. His interest is in the fragility and liminality of human experiences. His first book, Vigilant Faith: Passionate Agnosticism in the Secular World was published by the University of Virginia Press this past August.

By Daniel Boscaljon
Image by Melissa D. Johnston

“my best for your worst” is the fourth letter in a series of posts called Letters to You written by Daniel Boscaljon with images by Melissa D. Johnston (from one of her ongoing projects). Letters to You began in July with “everytime i write i feel myself disintegrate.”

some words have power.  Even though I’m sure you will not dispute this assertion, I nonetheless will provide you with an example.  During 7^th grade band, Maria looked at me and said: “You bring out the worst in everyone.”  An arrangement of seven words–do you think that they could stand engraved in my memory if they had no power? At the time, I laughed off the words, thinking to myself that they were only tossed out in a sort of bored and half-hearted rage.  As the words continued to haunt me, I continued to defend myself using a variety of different strategies: 1) she doesn’t know me well enough to be able to judge me!  2) she just hasn’t seen me with my friends, and, reduced to the context of band, was rendering a verdict as universally true despite being only locally valid.  3) she herself was just having a bad day and simply displaced other troubles and anxieties onto me.  Over the years, I settled on one or another of these theories, seeking solace overall in the wisdom of friends happy to assure me that I produced a beneficent effect on others and made them to be better people.  At the same time, the TRUTH of these words continued to haunt me beneath the comfort and I was unable to simply remove myself from them altogether.  Over the years, systematically unable to ignore her words, it was time for me to reconsider the original statement.  This I did.  I discovered, perhaps, that it is true.  I DO, indeed, bring out the worst in everyone.  I brought out the worst in her that day, her anger and blind frenzied frustration.  But not only her, or those who dislike me, or my students, or those indifferent: in all, I bring out the worst.  I finally understood that I want to bring out the worst even in you.  I succor it, slowly allowing you to open up to me, to trust me enough to give me even that.  I want to know ALL of you, I want the gift of you unfiltered, uncensored.  I want your bests–but your worst, too.  I want to bring it out of you.  The question I’m sure you’re asking is WHY I would do this.  For you, it’s easy…although there are two possible answers:1) I see your worst and realize how truly amazing you are…for your worst is not so bad at all.  2) I take your worst, drawing it out from you, allowing you to offer it to me as a type of purgative: freed from your worst, you can truly be your best.  With others, an additional motive comes into play:  3) I draw out the worst within them such that they can see themselves as who they are. In my youth, I would bring the worst out in people as a type of game.  As I aged, I grew self-righteous and would serve as a judge but now, I simply allow people’s worst to be reflected.  Judge for yourself!  I offer only comfort, never judgment.  I will take your worst, and then give a hug in return (if such physical proximity is not abhorrent).  I will do my best to get your worst.  I use what empathy has been granted to me to probe below surfaces, to see the dark linings under silver clouds.  I want your smog and pollutions, your dark secrets and rotting skeletons: once they’ve seen the light, perhaps we both can be released.  I will not judge.  I will not be angry.  I will do my best for your worst, my utmost for your lowest.  Such is my lot, and here do I embrace it!

Daniel Boscaljon has Ph.D.s in Modern Religious Thought and 19th-century American Literature, both from the University of Iowa. His interest is in the fragility and liminality of human experiences. His first book, Vigilant Faith: Passionate Agnosticism in the Secular World will be published by the University of Virginia Press this August.