The letter of the day for Tuesday hails from "Wayfinding." I'm not sure of the exact date it was written, but a reference to the AIDS epidemic as "the AIDS scare" makes me think it must have been the mid to late '80s. Written by a young man working in the UK after finishing his formal education, it's a hilarious account of his antics. After house-sitting in "numerous palaces around London" posing as the owner, he lives in "something that reminds him of a large meat freezer" and works at Harrod's, amongst "desirous women", that keep "his hormones balanced." He reports he is so scared of STD's he takes his safe off only to relieve himself.
Also in the window until end of day today are more "Wayfinding" letters. This one from 1983 is a favorite of mine. It reads:
"Here is a line from Tolstoy's Anna Karenina that hit me like a hammer. Needless to say I think he is a brilliant writer.
He felt that this independent attitude of a man who might have done anything, but cared to do nothing was already beginning to pall, that many people were beginning to think he was not really capable of anything , but being a straight forward good natured fellow
Jesus is that you? It certainly is me. God last year it was so nice travelling around the world confident in the fact that I would go to school study architecture be brilliant etc."
Another young man toughing it out in London in 1952 laments he is "homesick and scared—scared of myself, scared stiff of life and perhaps afraid to look at it squarely." He continues, "I want to prove ...that I have a few guts. I want to grow up and to be something."
At day's end, one of the guys at SOHO brought me a note I had to include!
"When I was five years old my mom told me that happiness was the key to life. When I went to school they asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. I wrote down "happy." They told me I didn't understand the assignment and I told them they didn't understand life."
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