My Dear Vince,
What a true poet you are! Even if spelling and grammar is not 100%; doesn't matter at all right now. Like I said, I could speak French but couldn't write worth a darn, and the same goes for Spanish now that I live in Guatemala part time. I am functionally "illiterate" so that's even worse. I'll be glad to correct things so you can send them out if you want to; they are that good. And I read all the time so I know what I am talking about.
There is so much in your letter to think about. You don't have to "pick it apart piece by piece at a later time" as that is part of the beauty of the piece; it flows just like a waterfall. Just like Hemingway or Steinbeck. I like the original spacing of the piece as well, all the sentences separated... even the small "i's" help sustain the mood of the emptiness of the desert and the crashing of the bombs and guns going off all around...
Thanks for permission to send out "emailing the war," which I will when I get back. It's too important not too. I have nothing but family members who were or are active military, and believe me, when I opposed the Vietnam War when I was young they would have strung me up in a second as a "traitor."
Now I am sure not much has changed. But I don't bring it up and neither do they (thank God). I'm still sending it out as it paints an exact picture of what it is like to participate in war, and how it permanently changes the landscape and our souls. It's a very important picture you have painted here, and all "off the cuff." That's the simplicity and beauty of it.
I don't think I'll see the movie either, as it would probably be too upsetting. Your prose is enough to create the picture for me, and I thank God you came back "safe and sound." At least as much as you were able.
"I cannot portray in words how nice it is to be able to write someone who has an interest though (it doesn't hurt that there are no expectations on how I would or should feel) which is a problem more often than not."Same here. So you can see I am very happy also to be able to talk about things without "expectations" about how either one of us should feel - you should see how I got blasted on BoobTube (YouTube) when I commented on "The Tragedy of the Civil War" which was a beautiful and heartbreaking collection of photographs of young, young men before or after they were killed in battle... All I said was "I wish there was another way" referring to the title of the video, "The Tragedy of... War," and I was blasted to smithereens. But I didn't care, well, I did, but I stuck to my guns and said my piece and finally left the site. I made a couple of really good email friends whom you might also want to meet, one of whom is over in Iraq right now. Lord, I pray to bless him and keep him safe from harm, along with all other unknown soldiers and civilians...
One guy who had seen active combat wrote that "death looks the same at any period of time, no matter what the age" (or something like that) which moved me to tears. It's a beautiful haunting video with the "Ashokan Farewell," the famous song from Ken Burn's "Civil War" historical video. You can hear it on iTunes or Amazon.com. I just bought the song from iTunes, but realized I can't send it to you as it won't play on another computer. Drat.
But war is a way of life in this world, and not just for humans although "human nature" can often be too much to bear. I will never understand our nature of "good and evil" with a decision to make every instant. Heaven or hell, bad or good, Pandora's Box and the Apple of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. That's what we are talking about. A world made up of opposites.
Almost every animal has it's opposition too, and I don't understand this world we live in, with what we call a "food chain." As they say, "everything is someone else's lunch." Even the plants, and who knows what they think or feel when chewed to bits by people or cows? Just because we can't hear them or understand? Life is funny that way. I try to adopt a more peaceful approach, although I know that I was "born with a sword in my hand." I have spent my whole life trying to lay that sword down. Yet the Latinos who used to work on my construction crew (done now) called me "El Tigra" so that tells you how well I have managed that. I don't know why they say that, I only got mad once and yelled and it wasn't at them, but they said it was because "I don't run." They say I'm "not afraid of anything and I never back down." I guess that's true in some parts, but in others I'm afraid of everything, so I feel like a mouse. Not a tiger! But I'd rather be a tiger than get eaten like a mouse, so I guess it's some kind of balance. At least my former farm foreman (sold the farm last year) said I wasn't "a lion" as he said I didn't "go around roaring and starting trouble," like a lion does (he said that was his wife, not me!) I just didn't run from it. So there you go.
I always said he was a small strong Mexican brown bull, who grazed peacefully in the field but did not allow any trespass and wasn't afraid of ANYTHING. Ask him and he'll say the same. "Noe, what are you afraid of?" "NADA." Nothing. And it's true. So that's probably why we really got along. Two - not predators - but strong types? What's the word here? Don't back down.
But then I am petrified with fear going up to Vermont to record on Tues. Really! I can't believe how scared I am, I feel so foolish since I haven't played in over a year. I did just get an email from the recording engineer who says I can come in Tues. and practice for a couple of hours, and do the recording on Wed. Thank God! Plus I'm going to buy a practice electronic keyboard to start with right now and while I'm in the hotel room. I can't mess up this opportunity that has presented itself!
"I am quite sure you will do wonderfully in Vermont. Music touches our souls only if we are willing to open our ears and minds to ALL forms of it. Good luck."See, this is why you are an excellent writer, and so full of encouragement! What a wonderful way to put it. Your words are like "music to our soul."
It's obvious that your years of journal writing is paying off. You write the way I play.
And that's a compliment!
Use your spelling checker or send me something you want to send out, and I'll review it for you. Can't wait to get "another installment."
* * * *
I see that you grew up in Ohio, and now live in Alabama? My relatives are from Illinois and Ohio, and I LOVED it there. I love the Midwest. People think it's just cows and cornfields, but it's beautiful land with rolling hills and valleys are flat, rich fields. Some of the best times of my life were spent in an old farmhouse where all my friends and I lived with an outhouse and a wood stove, and a pump outside to take a bath and a hand pump inside at the kitchen sink. It was great. I would swim in the river every morning at dawn and watch the sun come up shining on the water rising above the fallen tree trunk making a bridge for the squirrels, skunks and more... and the fireflies would dance at night filling the valley with their bright bobbing flashing lights. I used to sleep outside with my dog wrapped in an old blanket lying on the ground, and listen to the hoot owls calling, calling across the fields. It was a wonderful time and it's stayed with me all these years. I wish I could go back there again.
I go back to Oxford NC (near Raleigh-Durham) on Oct. 1, then to San Antonio to see my friends Arthur and Georgina Kennedy, who have a hotel at Lake Atitlan, Panajachel in Guatemala. Georgina is Guatemalan and is "the mother I never had," and I'm the daughter she never had... and Arthur is the father I DID have. Mean as a snake when he's been drinking, he's a wounded veteran going for his annual checkup at the VA hospital in San Antonio, so I said I would come down.
Since Georgina doesn't speak any English, I want to be there to help her get around and to get Arthur, who can be nice one minute and brutal the next, to and from the hospital for a week or so. I was on the swim team at Lackland Air Force Base and we went to the national championships when I was 14, and I went to Our Lady of the Lake Catholic school there and my beloved 5th grade teacher Irene Dolan is still living there. So I am really looking forward to this visit to my old haunting grounds. I found Irene after 30 years and she still calls me her "adopted daughter" and her daughter Dianna is still one of my best friends, after losing touch for so many years.
I swear, sometimes I think we are all linked on some spiritual level, that we run into people we don't know at all, but it feels like we've known them forever.
Anyway, I've probably written "too much." The story about living on the farm years and years ago... well, you really got me to thinking here. It is good to write down all the good things along with the bad, and make a book of short stories out of them. Kind of like playing pieces of music. I wrote one when my mother-in-law died, and I was in Guatemala, three weeks after I left she was gone. I'll send you that one later on.
Write me as much as you want, send anything at all, and I'll write back as soon as I can. When this darn Internet connection is "up."
"I am quite sure you will do wonderfully in Vermont. Music touches our souls only if we are willing to open our ears and minds to ALL forms of it. Good luck."Thank you - thank you - thank you, for your poetry in ALL forms. Encouragement is worth it's weight in gold. Yes. I think you are good person to know. Let me know what the last five years have been like, interspersed with the years in between. At the end of it you will have your book.
The lady who wrote "To Kill a Mockingbird" couldn't write grammatically or spell either, and an editor "saved" the book which single-handedly helped bring racism to an end. The book and the movie with Gregory Peck, as well. If you couldn't guess before, I was (am) Scout, through and through.
Well, I’ve written more here than I have in a long time. You got the “whole story,” just about! Hope it’s not too much. Inspiration goes a long way, yes?
"I would love to keep an open ended discussion from time to time. "Me, too. Thanks again for writing and sharing all this, and letting me "day dream" a bit too, of "better days gone by..."
Your friend, Catherine
--
*** Traveling:
"A child on a farm sees a plane fly overhead and dreams of a faraway place. A traveler on a plane sees the farmhouse and dreams of home." ~ Carl Burns
Words to live by: "Best of all is to preserve everything in a pure, still heart, and let there be for every pulse a thanksgiving, and for every breath a song." ~ Konrad von Gesner
"The world is made anew each day, for God makes it so. It contains within it all the good and all the evil as before; no more, no less, but the same." ~ Paraphrased from "The Crossing," by Cormac McCarthy
Catherine Todd
3007 Bent Tree Dr. Oxford NC 27565
H 919.693.0853 U.S. cell 919.605.0727
On 9/21/07, vince seli wrote:
WOW. I'm not sure what to say i guess i will have to pick it apart piece by piece at a later time., as i am just running in to check my e-mail for the moment. I was sent home from the war for some medical reasons which is what i meant by "for the most part sound". I only have a high school education, so as far as formally trained, i am not. not even close to be honest. i can write well on occasion and i do write but i do it privately in a journal, which i have kept for years. I spent 5 years going in and out of war zones (Afghan and Iraq as well as "hot zones" Indochina) As for my feelings on the war itself, that is in it self a whole book, so for now we will leave it as an open discussion between the two of us. i cannot portray in words how nice it is to be able to write someone who has an interest though (it doesn't hurt that there are no expectations on how i would or should feel) which is a problem more often than not. so if you promise not to be too critical on the spelling or grammar i would love to keep an open ended discussion from time to time. Feel free to send whatever to whom ever. I don't know if its good enough to send out or be published but feel free. like i said that was a quick email i sent to someone i call brother (if only by friendship). I had no idea there is a movie on the subject and to be honest im not sure if i will see it or not.... that's one of those things, i will most likely go to see it, now if i make it through the whole thing is yet to be seen.
I am quite sure you will do wonderfully in vermont. Music touches our souls only if we are willing to open our ears and minds to ALL forms of it. Good luck.
Vince
Catherine Todd wrote:
Dear Vince,
"Yo thanks for the complements" Anytime!
What a nice surprise to find a letter from you! Never thought that would happen... Since the website I found your writing wasn't really current (from 2005), I wasn't sure. It was listed on someone else's website. Do you have one or a blog or something? Where's the rest of your writing? You have described the Human Condition in a way I have never seen or felt before. I was moved like no other and it changed my outlook completely on the war and human sacrifice. In ways I can't explain, but it has stayed with me. That's the mark of great writing and the gift of it, that you so obviously have. I hope you keep up with this, as it's too bright a light to hide under a bushel. The photo you included also really hit home. I think about that all the time.
That piece of writing was wonderful, about a very difficult situation (what are the "real" words to use here? Terrible, awful, righteous, what?). I've thought about it ever since I first came across it. You have no idea.
How in the world did you come up with this? Did you edit it, work on it, or did it just "flow out" like the piano does for me, or for songwriters who just "pluck words out of the air?" Tell me more and send me more...
I don't know what to say about helping with grammar and spelling, as I was lucky enough to be "raised by the nuns" and that was a big part of our education, and I read all the time so I am able to spell pretty well. When I lived in France I finally learned to speak French pretty well so that part was fine, but I was functionally illiterate and couldn't write or spell worth a darn. So I know a little bit about how you feel in that department. Luckily there are spelling checkers (even for email) so most of our mistakes can be caught, and MS Word has a grammar checker (which is a real pain to use, but is better than nothing). With these darn spell checkers even I have gotten so lazy mentally that I still can't spell certain words correctly. Oh, well. Better writing something than nothing.
I hope you publish that excerpt about the War in Iraq somewhere / everywhere. It's too important to just let it lie or sift into oblivion. It was beautiful and heartbreaking all at once. "In the valley of Elah..." what was it called? "Emailing the War".... oooohhhhhh.
May I have permission to send it out to my friends on my email list? May I send it elsewhere where it might be appreciated?
I just looked up "In the Valley of Elah" and see it is a movie coming out, with Tommy Lee Jones, about the mental state of soldiers returning from the war in Iraq. Oh my God. Are you going to see it?
"I am home and for the most part sound. I am on MySpace but to be honest i don't do much with it but i would love to add you as a friend..."
Sure! I don't do much with MySpace either, but would be happy to add you as a friend as well. I mostly hang around on the BoobTube (YouTube). That place is crazy and commenting is wild (but I can't help myself some times), but has some very interesting videos once you have slogged through the rest. If I can find you on MySpace I'll send a friend request.
What does it mean you are "home and for the most part sound?" What does that refer to? I grew up on military bases, not a great way to live... not for me, anyway. Where is "home" for you? What are you doing now that you are back?
I'm here in NYC for the weekend to hear some of my friends play guitar in concert, and am driving up to Vermont to do my very first real piano recording. Very nervous about it, but am going to buy an electronic keyboard to plug into my laptop so I can practice a lot before I go on Monday. There's all kinds of orchestration and beats you can do with the Mac computer now, which comes with GarageBand so it's pretty incredible. I am finally moving into the "electronic age."
Write more, and send me anything else you've written. I'll check grammar and spelling if you want - at least I'll give it a shot. You have the gift and I hope you continue to develop it. You could make a living this way if you aren't already. What are you doing with your time now that you are home?
Thanks again for writing, hope to hear from you again soon! I will forward you some photos of my garden in NC where I was planting fall flowers before I left for NYC. I also have a lot of photos from where I live part-time in Guatemala, "under the volcanoes" in Panajachel, at Lake Atitlan. Look it up on EnjoyGuatemala.com; lots of veterans have retired there. It's cheap and interesting and calm and relaxing; can't wait to go back in Nov. Antigua Guatemala is a beautiful little town, full of historic Spanish Colonial architecture and converted monasteries and convents. Beautiful. And it's a three or four hour direct flight from Charlotte, NC so it's a real easy trip.
Now it's off to MySpace to see if I can find YOU!
Thanks again...
Your friend, Catherine
" i find myself wishing for the end and dreaming of the beginning."
... quoted from your earlier piece, and couldn't be more true for me, right now. Thanks again.
--
*** Traveling:
"A child on a farm sees a plane fly overhead and dreams of a faraway place. A traveler on a plane sees the farmhouse and dreams of home." ~ Carl Burns
On 9/21/07, vince seli wrote:
Yo thanks for the complements. I am home and for the most part sound. I am on myspace but to be honest i don't do much with it but i would love to add you as a friend i write often but what you read was an exert from an email sent to my brother. I'm kind of self-conscience of my writing due to grammar and spelling errors though. Vince seli is my mane and i don't know how to direct you to the myspace thing. like i said i don't know much about it but i do have some pretty crazy pics and video from over there on it
Once again thanks
Vince
catherinetodd <> wrote:
This is a most incredible piece of writing I came across on the
internet, which describes in perfect detail what it must be like to
be over there "in the war on (in) Iraq." I can't imagine it. Do
you have any more writing? I hope you come home safe and sound...
What is your favorite music right now? Are you on YouTube or MySpace?
Let me know how I can help out... Yours, Catherine Todd
Catherine S. Todd,
3007 Bent Tree Dr. Oxford NC, 27565, USA,
Tel's: NC 919-693-0853, U.S. cell 919-605-0727, GUA cell: dial from
the U.S. 011-502-5382-4694, ctodd1000@gmail.com
*** Traveling:
"I am not afraid of storms, for I am learning to sail my ship." -
Louisa May Alcott
Words to live by: "Best of all is to preserve everything in a pure,
still heart, and let there be for every pulse a thanksgiving, and for
every breath a song." -- Konrad von Gesner
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