New Year's Letters
The following are all written on white paper in Ilad's neatest hand, in English. Except for Jean-Paul's, which comes in the form of a secured email.
Northstar,
I cannot offer you any but my best wishes for a sweet year on such a breadth of distance, but I thought I should want to do so however paltry the offering. You and your mission are in my thoughts.
I hope you will keep in fit form on your further shore. I find you have been gone from us hardly a week and yet I already miss your edge.
Good hunting out there. B'hatzlacha.
Chol
***
Beloved,
So I have named you, and so you are. At the center of my heart I keep you. What I find in your arms is shelter. What I find in your eyes is understanding. I am drunk on it when I look at you. You have asked me to forgive myself, and I do not know that it is in me to do that. It is only in me to strive; to do what must be done, to do better than I have before. But on the hard road I walk, you have stood beside me and the compassion on your tongue is as sweet as honey.
It is the beginning of the new year of my people. 5772, if it makes a difference to know it. It is time to look back on the year past and remember it, to set behind what must be set behind so that I may embrace the future, and to keep close what I will carry with me as my life moves onward. My last year was a year of hazard, a year of pain, bearing loneliness and loss and fear and uncertainty. But I will not remember any of these things, for all that the scars have marked my skin. What I remember today, tonight, is you.
I remember your eyes. They remind me of the Galilee in the morning in my homeland, the mist rising from the waters like a soft cloak. I remember your smile, ranging from its most sweet to its most sour, as though it is written behind my eyes. Your smiles come in so many shades and hues that a better writer than I could never catalogue them. You are elusive and cannot be captured. I remember your lips, as well. They touch me warmer than fire does and the heat I feel in my blood when I take you in my arms makes me wonder what it might feel like to scald.
I don't remember the way we began, the way we almost lost each other to your fear and my fool's pride. I don't remember the way I lashed out at you for the desperate crime of speaking secrets you never knew to hold. I remember the way I felt when I told you I wanted more, and the way you looked when you came back to me from the jungle, and the feel of your naked skin against mine that first night when I left fear behind and made love to you in earnest.
I remember the way you ache when you heal me, shared hurt between my body and your heart. I remember the way you waited for me when I stood frozen in shadow. I remember the way you forgive me for what I have done without ever once needing to hear it in so many words. I remember the way you kiss me, the way you hold me, your scent when I breathe you in, your voice when you laugh, when you tell me you love me.
I remember loving you.
To know that this next year we will walk together from this first day eases my heart for anything we might face. It is a custom of my people to begin the new year sweetly. I hope to start it this way, with these words, together.
L'shanah tovah, Alden.
Altogether yours,
Ilad
***
Brent,
I will preface this letter with an apology. It was not my intention to permit us to grow as far apart as we have in the past year. I do not like to lose loyalties. Once given, I consider them as graven in stone. It would be a fool indeed who did not acknowledge the changes in his life, the separation from his friends; but I do not have to like it, and I hope that you are not caused undue pain, or worry, in considering me and what I might be doing with my life. Perhaps I should have started with assurances that I am whole and well. I am. In fact, in many ways I am better than I ever was when we were closer. I think, in part, I owe that to you, and that debt I owe is one I do not know that I can repay.
It is Rosh Hashanah, the end of the year of my people, and the beginning of the next. It is a time to look back at the year past, and look forward to the year anew. I do not know what my next year will become. But I do not wish to lose hold of all that was before, in looking forward. There are parts of my past I am forced to look away from, by circumstance, by certainty. There are others I will always hold.
As to the future, I hold great hopes for your future, my friend. Your eye has power, and your heart, and these loan such power to your brush that I cannot but believe in your prospects for success. I keep the works of yours I have in pride of place in my apartment, both for the works of beauty that they are and for reminders.
I am in a relationship with a man for the first time in my life. I cannot say that it is the first time I have been in a relationship, for I have made my false starts before, as I believe you know. But it is the first time that I have loved, and been loved, with truth, without restraint. With nothing held back in my secret places, I have learned to give of myself. It is bittersweet to share it across this distance between us, my friend, but I thought that it might give you some small happiness to know.
I know that there are parts of my life now that you simply cannot touch. But I wanted to write to you, and give you what truths I can. I believe it owed. More, it is given gladly. Thank you for what you have given me and for what you have taught me.
L'shanah tovah. May your year, too, be sweet.
Yours,
Ilad
***
Avraham,
I know that your eyes must be strained from your long hours of study, so I will be brief.
For a sweet new year, I offer you this:
I am sorry.
I apologize for the weight of scorn that I leveled on you. I have come to learn that I will not go home, or that if I will, my return will be a long time coming. I have found a path in America, and while I cannot explain it or ask you to understand it, it is not right or fair for me to expect you to live the life I left behind simply because I can no longer hold it.
This is your life. These are your choices. I would not permit anyone to make mine for me. I cannot expect to do the same for you.
Brother, I love you, and with my love must come my trust and my respect. I am here to give you advice but only if you ask it. I am here to give you support but only if you need it. In truth, the words I have for you may be shortened to those three. I am here.
L'shanah tovah, Avi. G-d bless.
Ilad
Northstar,
I cannot offer you any but my best wishes for a sweet year on such a breadth of distance, but I thought I should want to do so however paltry the offering. You and your mission are in my thoughts.
I hope you will keep in fit form on your further shore. I find you have been gone from us hardly a week and yet I already miss your edge.
Good hunting out there. B'hatzlacha.
Chol
***
Beloved,
So I have named you, and so you are. At the center of my heart I keep you. What I find in your arms is shelter. What I find in your eyes is understanding. I am drunk on it when I look at you. You have asked me to forgive myself, and I do not know that it is in me to do that. It is only in me to strive; to do what must be done, to do better than I have before. But on the hard road I walk, you have stood beside me and the compassion on your tongue is as sweet as honey.
It is the beginning of the new year of my people. 5772, if it makes a difference to know it. It is time to look back on the year past and remember it, to set behind what must be set behind so that I may embrace the future, and to keep close what I will carry with me as my life moves onward. My last year was a year of hazard, a year of pain, bearing loneliness and loss and fear and uncertainty. But I will not remember any of these things, for all that the scars have marked my skin. What I remember today, tonight, is you.
I remember your eyes. They remind me of the Galilee in the morning in my homeland, the mist rising from the waters like a soft cloak. I remember your smile, ranging from its most sweet to its most sour, as though it is written behind my eyes. Your smiles come in so many shades and hues that a better writer than I could never catalogue them. You are elusive and cannot be captured. I remember your lips, as well. They touch me warmer than fire does and the heat I feel in my blood when I take you in my arms makes me wonder what it might feel like to scald.
I don't remember the way we began, the way we almost lost each other to your fear and my fool's pride. I don't remember the way I lashed out at you for the desperate crime of speaking secrets you never knew to hold. I remember the way I felt when I told you I wanted more, and the way you looked when you came back to me from the jungle, and the feel of your naked skin against mine that first night when I left fear behind and made love to you in earnest.
I remember the way you ache when you heal me, shared hurt between my body and your heart. I remember the way you waited for me when I stood frozen in shadow. I remember the way you forgive me for what I have done without ever once needing to hear it in so many words. I remember the way you kiss me, the way you hold me, your scent when I breathe you in, your voice when you laugh, when you tell me you love me.
I remember loving you.
To know that this next year we will walk together from this first day eases my heart for anything we might face. It is a custom of my people to begin the new year sweetly. I hope to start it this way, with these words, together.
L'shanah tovah, Alden.
Altogether yours,
Ilad
***
Brent,
I will preface this letter with an apology. It was not my intention to permit us to grow as far apart as we have in the past year. I do not like to lose loyalties. Once given, I consider them as graven in stone. It would be a fool indeed who did not acknowledge the changes in his life, the separation from his friends; but I do not have to like it, and I hope that you are not caused undue pain, or worry, in considering me and what I might be doing with my life. Perhaps I should have started with assurances that I am whole and well. I am. In fact, in many ways I am better than I ever was when we were closer. I think, in part, I owe that to you, and that debt I owe is one I do not know that I can repay.
It is Rosh Hashanah, the end of the year of my people, and the beginning of the next. It is a time to look back at the year past, and look forward to the year anew. I do not know what my next year will become. But I do not wish to lose hold of all that was before, in looking forward. There are parts of my past I am forced to look away from, by circumstance, by certainty. There are others I will always hold.
As to the future, I hold great hopes for your future, my friend. Your eye has power, and your heart, and these loan such power to your brush that I cannot but believe in your prospects for success. I keep the works of yours I have in pride of place in my apartment, both for the works of beauty that they are and for reminders.
I am in a relationship with a man for the first time in my life. I cannot say that it is the first time I have been in a relationship, for I have made my false starts before, as I believe you know. But it is the first time that I have loved, and been loved, with truth, without restraint. With nothing held back in my secret places, I have learned to give of myself. It is bittersweet to share it across this distance between us, my friend, but I thought that it might give you some small happiness to know.
I know that there are parts of my life now that you simply cannot touch. But I wanted to write to you, and give you what truths I can. I believe it owed. More, it is given gladly. Thank you for what you have given me and for what you have taught me.
L'shanah tovah. May your year, too, be sweet.
Yours,
Ilad
***
Avraham,
I know that your eyes must be strained from your long hours of study, so I will be brief.
For a sweet new year, I offer you this:
I am sorry.
I apologize for the weight of scorn that I leveled on you. I have come to learn that I will not go home, or that if I will, my return will be a long time coming. I have found a path in America, and while I cannot explain it or ask you to understand it, it is not right or fair for me to expect you to live the life I left behind simply because I can no longer hold it.
This is your life. These are your choices. I would not permit anyone to make mine for me. I cannot expect to do the same for you.
Brother, I love you, and with my love must come my trust and my respect. I am here to give you advice but only if you ask it. I am here to give you support but only if you need it. In truth, the words I have for you may be shortened to those three. I am here.
L'shanah tovah, Avi. G-d bless.
Ilad