I think the task of these days is remembering. Earth is spinning at 1,000 miles per hour on its axis and orbiting at ~20 miles per second around the Sun. Your parents loved their first cars and the gravelly highways and they have prurient organs and will/did die and they felt, long ago, what you’re now feeling and are trying so hard to articulate, and they failed, and you’ll fail too, but they’re your parents and it won’t ever end, and if it did end, well. And you ate the worst food when you were 7 years old in Texarkana and you thought the neighbor’s dog would kill you (it was named Ripper in my case) and the girls were the meanest you’d ever come across, aw man, like thickets or hedges or whatever, remember? You made that fort in the trees and it was the realest thing that’s ever been and all reality derives from that illusion you MADE / you / what if you were at my window — Keep a globe on your desk and such, and look at how vast the Pacific Ocean is. Like that. It does get better. Late twenties. We’re past it. Run your fingers down the page. Your parents put their toes in the Pacific. Whoever named it the Pacific named it that because it seemed so calm. I guess. Perfect blue. I guess. But it had been seen by 100 million people before it was named. “Named!” Shoot. Remember! Dan and I drove down Highway 1 in March, 2008, en route to Santa Cruz, and we couldn’t take the ocean’s beauty. But were we already so old, Dan? Remember? It blinded us! A flightless bird had landed in the surf and it was getting tossed about, and people with dogs and frisbees didn’t know what to do, nor did the dogs, nor did the frisbees, nor did we. Or was that May, 2009? Hi, Dan! Best of luck. You get to the Midwest, and you’re not even Mid of the way to the Middle West. Remember. Your parents got lost and never made it back. I’ve never been to Iowa or Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma. But Idaho is so pretty; and there are apparently other countries in the world besides the States. And other people, and other situations that would move you just as much, must as juch. Coeur d’Alene, yes; Sandpoint, yes; Toronto, definitely. I regret pretty little. I’ve seen so little of Earth and its inhabitants — you’ve probably had some bad turns, worse than I’ve had, sorry!, so I should stop preaching, but. But. Help me out I’m in the dark! Help me, Cooper! Help me, Shelly!

Look into the Pacific. Look into Angle Township. Look it up! Look into that piece of you that you found a year ago and reserved for the return of that unknown sentiment, that rushing gushing wind-memory — as if the wind, the orange-purple wind, could gust up and go through the trees in that same way, could produce that same A-flat hmmm, make that same memory, that knot of wind and trees that was already shifting and changing and undoing itself even as it was creating and doing and renewing itself. You’re sad / It could; it will. “This argument apparently satisfied the queen of Prussia.” Sometimes you get sad! And you don’t know what to do! And you have nobody to blame, not even yourself! And a wordbluster falls // flat // and / but / or. The task of these days is remembering, he said. I can’t imagine any other task. Remembering all those people you know and the like. Not remembering responsibilities or remembering your filial duties, silly sills. Recommendation to the sad person: Sit down on the street and look at the smallest grain of street-gravel you can find and remember that it connects you to him and her and 1491 and 2154 and Arizona and Tierra del Fuego and, probably, Vega or Sirius or Arcturus. Can we hang out in early June? I’ll point out the major stars. Remember. The words that are running around are “spectacle” and “zeitgeist” but those are mere words, mere being, mere palms, mere mind, mere Fluff / Stuff, things, zeitgeist, history, dreams, crema, flan, honey, country, language, rivers, mountains, but soon, you have, to capitalize, Spain, & the wild cities!

“A man said to the universe:
‘Sir, I exist!’
‘However,’ said the universe,
‘The fact has not created in me
A sense of obligation.’”

On the contrary! The universe is positively obliged to all of us. Remember / remember // remember // remember /// remember /// remember /// remember. How could that ole universe not owe you for walking down the street? How could the bare branches not be telling you how sad they are? How could the coming leaves and birds and aromas and buds and everything not be telling telling TELLING you about spring? They’re obliged to tell you what they are, just like you are obliged to tell me who you are when you sit down, and nestle, sort of, laugh, sort of, and begin the discussion (you basically did). Take back the world and have wild sex or eat the cheese plate, how do I know, how do I know what you do? No TV.

I see the Pacific. I see the North Equatorial Current and the Equatorial Counter Current and the South Equatorial Current blowing through the Society Islands. Zoom all the way in and it ain’t sad; zoom out and it’s what it is. O Tootsie and Farley! tell me what you’re thinking. Rule the roost! Live your life! So we’ll go and go, my friend, and we’ve known each other a few years now, and I’m not sure it will ever get better, but I hope you’ve been where I’ve been, and when I get really bad soon or later, you’ll be there, and you’ll make it better, he said. He said he said he said / um / shoot. Um, he said.

Album of the year: Cursive’s “Mama, I’m Swollen.” No doubt about it.