YOU'VE GOT MAIL

Last night, by some miraculous stroke of serendipity, I just happened to happen to happen to look in the Spam folder of my email, searching for a missing confirmation message. The fourth email from the top was sent from my website (which gets a remarkable number of emails from Russian hookers). I opened the email and was thrilled to see it was from someone I'd befriended in Berlin, more than a decade ago, but had ultimately fallen out of contact. I'd tried several times to track him down through Facebook but no luck. I immediately responded to his message and we've been catching up with one another. I am sharing something he wrote to me, which is not only beautifully expressed, but just the thing I needed to read at this moment, when I've been wrestling with more than my usual share of self-doubt. Although I have some reservations about sharing publicly, something written to me privately, I think by not identifying this person, there's no real violation of his privacy: "I think of you often. There was something special about you. I admire the consequences that you take upon yourself for the art you are creating. I like your working till collapsing. Forgetting everything around. Giving everything for what you yearn for. That’s so rare.... Someone who is not working for a living. But for an idea." Thank you, old friend, for that muchly appreciated dose of kindness. It was just the salve I needed for my battered and bruised self-esteem. See Less Comment Share