my friend, the one moving from nevada to north carolina is now in arizona. called from the road to say hello. during the conversation, the blog came up. heh.
they told me it was difficult for them to tell the difference between ‘what is real’ here and ‘what is fiction’. made me smile. and it was timely, too… because i really should make a point of regularly saying that this is a very deliberate thing, the mixing of life and art.
for the most part, as a visitor, you will never know what is ‘real’ here and what isn’t. the only one who will ever really know is me. there may or may not be others in the world who think they recognize something in my words…. but that doesn’t mean they were written as truth. it if means anything, it means only that they believe them to be one way or another.
there are some who will be absolutely certain i am talking about them. they may be right. they may be completely wrong. i could be writing things the way i wish they happened. or i may be writing things as they almost happened. or i may be writing things that are odd combinations of any of these. unless i specifically tell you in the piece itself that it really happened, you just will never know.
and sometimes, even when i tell you it really happened, that may just be part of the art, the fiction.
so… this in mind, please, make a point of reminding yourself that everything here is just words… on a page… and the only meaning it will ever have rests in what i meant (which i may or may not tell you, and which may or may not be true or real if placed here) or in what you think it means or meant… which is not a gift or a curse… but if it were, it wouldn’t be one i give you, but one you give yourself.
at the end of the day, this is the place where anything and everything that i care to put letter to comes to rest. nothing more, nothing less, and very likely nothing at all.
did my friend really call and did we talk about the blog?
is my friend really moving from arizona to north carolina?
did i make it all up just to have a reason to write this?
did it happen just this way, exactly?
am i meaning to tell you nothing here is real? or hide that everything here is real?
am i telling you it doesn’t matter? or that it always matters?
have you considered that maybe i’m just telling you that it’s all up to you?
maybe i’m telling you that you must decide for yourself.
but i don’t really have to tell you that, do i? it’s what humans do.