SO I FAILED

My home was gone. So I decided to write this book. I tried to remember all of the people and phantoms I had ever known and loved. I tried to make them laugh and dance, move and dream, love and see. I put some of them together and twisted our time together. I tried to bring them back, but I couldn’t. I started digging on the mountain years ago. I pushed the shovel down deep into the rocky ground and I cut out clumps of dirt and stones hard as gall.

My wife even asked me one morning, “What the hell are you doing.”

I didn’t say anything to her, but I took the dirt and stones and I put them in plastic bags. Then I traveled. I went to Pittsburgh, PA, and Chicago, IL, and Atlanta, GA. I went back to Pittsburgh, PA. I left my dirt there in the streets. I went back to Chicago, IL. I went to New York City. I went to Washington, DC. I went to Charlotte, NC. I went to Raleigh, NC. I went to Oxford, MS. I went to Ann Arbor, MI—the home of Iggy Pop and the ever beautiful Elizabeth Ellen. I went to Portland, OR. I dreamed of China. I dreamed of India, Berlin, Paris, London. I went to Seattle, WA. I went to New York City and I dropped my dirt. I went to New York City. I went to New York City for a third time. I went to New York City.

 

I gave my dirt away to the people I met. I called it magic dirt and they laughed. They put it in flower pots and the flowers grew. I dropped the stones on the sidewalks. I told them I was going to make the whole world Crapalachia, but they didn’t believe me. They thought I was only joking. I think of Sarah asking me why I was doing this.

I told her I was putting blankets in the trees for our children, so that no matter where they went—they would always be home. The whole world would become this place. It would take a million years and it would take a million trips, but I would rearrange the world.

She said, “That’s impossible, Scott, and it’s also crazy.”

I told her that’s why I needed to do it. I told her that was the only reason to do anything.

 

 

So now I put the dirt from my home in my pockets and I travel. I am making the world my mountain.

 

 

So we have to come to the end. Listen: Your heart is beating. Isn’t that amazing? Your heart believes in you. I believe in your heart too.

 

I wanted to write a book about all the people I knew and loved before I forgot them, but I see that my book is something else now. I see that I have been praying a selfish prayer for myself. I see that I have been praying this prayer…

Please tell me I existed. Please tell me I was born. Please tell me I sang, and laughed, and danced, and saw and dreamed. I am beyond fucking memories now. It is a time for forgetting. God bless the forgotten. God bless the forgetful.

 

We pass the torch of life for one another like runners in the night. I WILL forever be reaching for you. PLEASE keep reaching for me. Please.