so it’s that time when evening breezes caress, and whip, trees on a Sunday that has gotten progressively chillier as the hours pass as I’m cruising on this road with you, J.K., saying, is this why I’m here, for the SANITY OF SURRENDER?

the work flows, with a manic energy that doesn’t stop, in the morning in the afternoon in the evening all night long until day breaks and the moment begins anew. surrendering to the process has been easy, TO WRITE (the reason for my being here), to be, for real, what I claim I am (I’m a writer- are you how wonderful - well yes I suppose it’s a kind of life- oh it’s a wonderful life - perhaps, since it’s christmas in america where wonderful lives are everything are all).

if only it were as easy to surrender the soul.

J.K. you were a victim of wine & roses, the movie that made me weep, alone in an inhospitable flat where the water was warm but the love was cold & for sale & unable to sustain me, or anyone, for long. in your house J.K. I discover Important Things (capitalized à la Pooh, the taoist bear) . . . like: wine & roses are words that belong to a poet, one Ernest Dowson, an english decadent born in 1867, thanks to the new york times that the Kerouac House supplies me every sunday. to think I never knew, me, the lover of words & images & roses & wine & days without nights. you learn your ignorance every hour, every millisecond, as long as you breathe, IF you choose.

today a teenage boy scout asked, “want some mistletoe?” and he was innocent & charming, a dear angel boy, so I said, no, rather than saying, “and will you kiss me if I do?”

there was one christmas, years ago now when I ascended to the top of a mountain in KOTA KINABALU (formerly Jesselton, in East Malaysia), by climbing over fourteen thousand feet, because it seemed imperative, the thing to do, to be completely alone on christmas day at an altitude for private amens and amends to gaze on the face of.

hearing you, J.K., as I turn up the volume to “whisper.” sweet.