The Birthday Letter, November 2019

My Dearest K.L.,

I had a cat with those initials: Kleo Liberty, whom I found under the statue of El Colon on 5th May, and although my dad was reminded of a flight he had just come off from Kuala Lumpur, she had been named actually after the muse of history, in an effort to endear my mother, the historian, realising Gala wouldn’t work for her and needing to think ahead about cat-sitting the tri-color (tortoishell) should I need to travel again, albeit the spelling for the muse turns out to be Klio (but I didn’t have Google then, and my memory recall on fact has never been very good, don’t worry about that going down the drain faster after 50), which is, phonetically seen, the way, indeed I called her, unlike the way I spelled it closer to the Queen of Egypt with a C, whom everybody thinks they’ve been reincarnated from, and maybe that’s why they name their cat after her – little did I know, at the time, it was so popular for cats – but that precisely would not have motivated me to pick it: I prefer to think of Paul Klee, because Cleopatra only makes me think of Elisabeth Taylor, and especially Richard Burton, prompting me to quickly skip onto the sizzling “Whose Afraid Of Virginia Woolf”, a title that put me off Woolf’s books for decades, as I happened to remember, today, when I got to the part where Middle Sister in the “Milkman” mentions the film, of the play, as a catchy title even the youngest sisters under the age of ten were intrigued by, putting me off that is until I discovered Tilda Swinton in Orlando and had to compare this utterly sumptious gem of a film to the book, which I consider equally as brilliant even if Virginia herself never praised it highly, considering it a too intimate a love letter to be properly admirable authentically female consciousness flow literature, worthy of competing with men, and written rather as a light narrative entertainment for Vita Sackville West, whose garden I must surely have visited once, but do not recall, possibly only seven years old, or maybe 8 when the first concorde passenger flight took off, and we were allowed to watch it live on tv at school as if it were a rocket launch to the moon (!?), like I know the children were allowed to watch the Apollo landing in ’69, because this lady in the healthfood store told me so, during the hot spell we had, around about the time we were celebrating the landing 50 years ago, how she witnessed the giant leap as a primary school teacher (so she wasn’t 50 like me! I was going to take my awe of her youthful appearance with me to abate my fear of turning into an invisible pensioner), after we had chatted for a while in the store about Saturn conjunct Pluto possilby going to stoke the situation in the Middle East with Iran, a topic one naturally gravitates towards after letting them go first and then politely mentioning one’s reservations of the Bloodgroup Diet which decides for you scientifically whether you were allowed to go vegan or not, in response to whether the fizzy kefir drink I was purchasing would fit into her regime, which was by then another step nearer to me, the approach, obvious now, having begun with her surprised comment that I was carrying a Library book (on Max Ernst) under my arm, which I humoured her on, able to tell already she was one of those slightly unhinged people doing their most admirable to still take part in normal life, and in response to her astonishment that anybody still went to the library at all, I replied, I sure do and not just the one, reminding me in the moment of that other even more eccentric woman with the shopping carrier in the central library asking me where she might find this book on Degas, which no longer turned out to be on the shelf, once I had got the placement number off her, and although later I found it anyway after she had revealed she had seen it yesterday and hid it to be able to take it out today, I did wonder if she had wanted that book at all, after an hour of chatting about how she probably had been closely related to Van Gogh if not Vincent himself, in a former life, this after asking whether I too was a painter, to which I shrugged that I might like to get back into it, only I wasn’t sure I had the time or space, besides I couldn’t draw, so I had better work on that first of all, to which she became exceptionally animated about a book that would teach me everything I needed to know about perspective, the name of which or its author now eluded her, but she could mail me the details, and so, just as the library announced it was closing, I thought there could be no harm in having her address, although I wasn’t keen to hand her mine, to which she simpered knowing I probably wouldn’t write to ask for the title, nonetheless I did that same night to indicate I really had been listening to her for two hours, and had taken a genuine interest in what book had so inspired her to paint her and Van Gogh looking out of the window of a derelict warehouse somewhere in Hungary, and she replied with the title – now I have to take a look at yet another book, but that’s my own fault, may you be preserve your energy and be less chatty than me – but my reply to that was too much I think, for I never heard back from her since (or she understood infallibly it would not benefit her to pretend to be a writer); precious K.L., I am writing you on your birthday with another piece of good advice, as one who has gone before you. Hang low. It will enable you to clock a lot more time, and any second gained here will help to strengthen the line out. Do not expect the bridge building engineer to be a fair negotiator; he does what he can with limited means. He has outdone himself on my last request to find someone to play with (takes about 3 months to process the submitted paperwork, but it takes about 18 months to set it up, and you require a databank of possibles that spans approximately 30 or 40 years if not all of 50). However, may I caution you not to settle on what seems most fair by way of restoration, in order that you might continue to be of service. I don’t think you score points for fairness, so you might as well go all out. I advise especially to ask for much warmth and desire. Even dare to think in terms of “travelpartner”. It would never have occurred to me but I had never been in love so why would it? The intensity of life needed for a resurrection body is hard to gather otherwise. One might still hope to commune with nature, and this even can be done on a balcony, but it still will be hard work and didn’t Fleetwood Mac sing that you have to make loving fun? Maybe not the kind that gets you to stand on your head all day - unless you are a rebel with a cause – but it would be a lie to forgo the opportunity only because the solitary has been good to you as a safe passage. The bridge buider engineer prooves to be able to upgrade his own callibre in the midst of lovers. He always was and always will be a selfish bastard. No other approach would get the job done as well. All in all, I guess that is what we signed up for. Will it be enough to get us out to the other side and not back in the loop?

In the meantime, let him examine your wiring, the peering and fiddling will get easier on you now. Don’t know why, it just does, but don’t worry about it being renounciation to the inevitable, it isn’t, because your devotion is too true and now it has lasted this far out, it will remain on the level still, only becoming easier for him to read now you are becoming quieter (dippier to our minds, but very user friendly for his executive functions). There will be new influx commensurate your new carrying power. Don’t let that distress or distract you to tears at four in the morning, but that takes training, and can’t ever be ignored. Lives depend on it.

As long as we are only few as the luckiest ones, as Bowie might put it, we won’t be the loneliest ones. Our love heals many other women in pieces for man’s drive to survive. May they never grind you down, and may the waste never put you off making a lot of love.

Dearest, darling K.L. It saddens me to think of your birthday. Another irretrievable year snipped off your personal time to fall to the cutting floor. You enlace this time with such grace, I wish you could replicate yourself like maneki-neko, to be present in every home. Allow me this maudlin mood to celebrate how finally I have arrived at the celebration of life. If I qualifying time by its quantity, as might a cherry tree or an oak, it is because I have found myself grown extremely fond of you.

My heart, my soul, my spirit is forever at your beck and call.

Love,
Ki.

The “Cute Kitten” is by super-mapio