Letter to Jude from Jady

Dear Jude,

Addicted to Jewel again, indeed. In little times like this, when doubts about self worth, truth and deception quietly awake and nibble away at the heart, I go to Jewel, Jewel the sensual yet innocent one, wise yet wild, still long before one day turning up posing sluttish on a neon colored album. (No, I still can't quite get over that.) if I sound as if I have been pensive and absorbed in thoughts for days, I wasn't—I had to axe away that pile of work little by little, everyday for a long while now, before it becomes a monster and squashes me. I threw myself out there to be consumed by those notes and texts, with a blank mind, little enthusiasm and a nasty sense of urgency. Not reading the eclectic way any more (just slowly reading a wonderfully written French novel, Bonjour Tristesse by Francoise Sagan..hope you are going on to take francais!) not writing, not meeting up with friends and acquaintances (I missed to meet tree, and feel most regretful…most inexcusable.) shutting myself off but again not so thoroughly—every night when I sign on online my sight would linger over a certain name for a while too long, wishing, not even subconsciously and knowing too well the improbability, that a message would pop up and clarify some things. I didn't know I'd care this much, about tucked-away truths, of a possibly purely impulsive phrase and an ultimately commonplace and trivial incident, and even if the moment has long expired; but then again, I can't say I don't know myself through and through—it was only that certain self-knowledge is harder to confront, so I did know I'd be caring this much. And the boy is blameless, for, what would anyone say or do after all that happened? (There's no need to contradict this because there are still stretches of the story omitted and untold...and probably should remain so.) And I keep my reticence. Long silences suck things far and away, like vacuum, intangible, boundless, and dreadful; that dread is excruciating in just that—for fear of saying the wrong things, one says nothing, and for fear of turning a small disaster into a crisis by trying to mend it, one ties oneself down and does nothing, and let silences fill out the endless stretch of hours; it's more like thin shelled snails than happily feathered and warm blooded chickens; and I don't know what to think about snails. Or about hiding, or being frail and guardless. (now strangely, Esther's face surfaces and sneers that Esther sneer, says, yeah, go wallow in self-pity!) (I say to her, but I don't pity myself, and she scorns in return.) (Bravo Es, hardly anyone I know of could take up that pitiless cynical insolent devil role as you could. So stay in my fantasy a while…) anyway, I was at Luo's place for a while today. What took place in that very room almost three weeks ago seemed at once dreamlike and immediately erase-and-rewindable. I imagined the boy walking into the room any moment, saying a nonchalant hi, and everything would be back on track. But that's too dramatic to be true, of course, and the real me would probably be a real bastard again, picking up my bag and running off in nameless rage and self-inflicted sadness again. And those aren't even important any more—as soon as the rush of emotions was past each would realize that there are too much at stake—independence, freedom, peace of mind, deep secrets, and happiness itself—to exchange for some uncertain, short-lived thing that vaguely resembles love. Was it out of loneliness? Was it out of boredom? And by just how much need I reduce human emotions to categories and abstractions and reason before I could finally deal with them? That question is going to stay with me for a while...I'll rest my fatigued fingers and mind here..and post this on ss, an arbitrary something that might as well be imagined, impersonal, fictional..

Jady.