Letter

Dear Seedlings,

I miss you, my friends.  Are you well?  Happy?  Employed?  It’s my birthday and, therefore, the start of a new school year, so of course I’m thinking of you.

It’s nothing like we imagined, is it?  The city got bigger and bigger, its veins thick with money that filled up all the in-between spaces.  How strange that you can’t smoke in it anymore.  How strange that we’re all older.

I envy those of you who made it stick.  The musicians.  The activists.  Even the writers.  None of it will change a thing, but it must mean something anyway.  Even if it doesn’t, I’m still proud of you.

I’m a little afraid to come back, you know.  I’m afraid I won’t recognize anything, and that it won’t recognize me.  I have short hair now, which means that I don’t hide as much, but I still wear the same shoes.  I never was one for fashion.

We were, I realize now, already an anachronism.  What city pays for experiments anymore?  Who starts anything new?  It’s like the goddamn 1950s out there, except without the sleazy underbelly.  We were lucky, so lucky, and yet not.  We know what it was like when it was different.

I’m itchy again, like I was when I left: half here and half someplace else.  I’m keeping my head down, but underneath I’m lightning and thunder.  Only this time, I know that I am.

Anyway, I just wanted to tell you that you’re in my blood and always will be.  I’ll come and stay on your couch soon.

Love,
Vila