dearest mikey,

this is the struggle: who you are, who you’ve been.

year after year, the consideration, the moment of reflection. have i moved? the needle, the gap, have i crossed the bridge? am i in a new place? there, the crux: have i arrived?

and you look over your shoulder and it seems all you’ve done is drag your baggage with you, cut deep grooves across old worn out floors buckling up at the seams. you yearn to leave this house and it’s as if you haven’t even reached the front door.

you think you’re still carrying a you that is lacking, that is too young, too impetuous, too quick to judge, too quick to anger. you haven’t gotten anywhere. you are still here. and it’s a rubber band snap of disappointment, a whiplash of frustration that erupts with the question: when, dammit, when?

the problem is who is doing the looking. yes, this sounds stupid, but hear me out.

i marvel at you. without even trying, you unassumingly take center stage. how hard this must be for you, for someone who feels their flaws are self evident and wretched. in your moments of weakness you must desperately want to disappear. but this is not who you are. you are a wonder and somehow between then and now, you have convinced yourself otherwise.

and you know it. deep down, you know what you are capable of and it scares you.

because i see who you are, all your flaws and shiny bits. the cracked earth and the resplendent gardens. the softness and the jagged edges. the deep compassion and flippant remark. and every year, there is more forest than cliffs. every year, there is more understanding than judgement. every year, there is more color than black. it feels slow, you want to get there. but it’s not about crossing thresholds, it’s about depth. it’s not about getting from point A to point B, it’s about standing still, it’s about letting it wash over you.

i’ve really struggled with what i want to say to you, to write to you. to say something that you haven’t heard before. so let me end with: i love you and am in love with you. this year perhaps more so than any other, we have grown even closer. and it’s not because of me, it’s because of you.

so thank you michael, thank you for being the most wonderful son i could ever have imagined.

oh, and happy birthday.

love, always
me

My love,

Years on years, layers on layers, the places change, people come and go, but the players remain.

Side quests, boss battles, backstory, scene cuts. Leveling up. It feels like we’ve been leveling up. Does that feel like that for you? That we’ve been leveling up?

I feel closer to you every day. The tension between us a gentle one, keeping us in orbit, not gristle rubbing the skin raw. Heavenly bodies with elliptical journeys that in their moments of great distance are inevitably drawn back together.

What are we orbiting? This, this thing we stumbled upon by chance, this life we’ve lived, the heat and warmth and flares that threaten us but never break the surface.

It’s hard to explain, this thing I want to say to you, that I’ve been wanting to say to you every year, every day: I cannot explain us. I still don’t understand what the trigger was on that night. What was the compulsion.

you’ve asked me, how do you know? I didn’t know then, I just knew that you were the one, I just knew I wanted to be near you, with you, live a life with you. I still don’t know, I haven’t figured it out.

and I don’t care, I don’t care, I don’t care. I just want to keep spinning.

Always,

me

ba, look closely.

my ioanna,

It must be boring having me as a father. Every day, or at least every other day: “I’m proud of you.”

It must get tired. Or old. But I am old. Or a try to be. I’m at the very least exhausting.

But truth to tell it is exhausting to have you as a daughter. You succeed every time. Valedictorian. Jesus Christ, what do I say to that? Ok, let’s get a grip, let’s start somewhere.

you started out sitting on the couch in our home talking non-sense. This dramatic change. And there were dramatic changes, hard changes, difficult choices, but also transformation. You went in wanting to pick, and heal, people’s brains: you came out of it an artist and wanting to share the power of art as a teacher.

This was not a small feat, despite everything, your core did not change. Despite the hardship and disappointments, you still want to give and have found a viable way to give without compromising yourself.

Maybe that’s the lesson to be learned here, you sacrificed without compromise. You figured out the logistics and are factoring a way through. There is a beautiful logic there that I am… dammit, I’m going to say it again, proud of.

You see, you must be sick of it. Not my fault. It’s all on you.

You should be proud.

Love,
me

dear mom,

We’ve been through so much together, grown together, leaned on each other, and sometimes it feels we’ve grown apart. While your childhood was marked by the country and the awareness of a huge loving family, I was raised solely in your care. You were born in a house full of family that was then thrown out into the world. I was born alone and you were alone. You were my only family and you only had memories of one.

You were my world.

Everything I am, my strength, my stubbornness, my resilience, comes from you who had no choice but to survive, who did her best with very little. Look at I’ve built mom, look at this family, the woman I’ve made a life with, the children we have raised. They are a reflection of you sacrifice. They are a reflection of what you made possible for me.

Thank you mother, thank you for giving me the strength to not just survive, but to flourish.



Αγαπημένη μου μητέρα,

Περάσαμε τόσα πολλά μαζί, μεγαλώσαμε μαζί, στηρίξαμε ο ένας τον άλλον, και μερικές φορές νιώθω πως απομακρυνθήκαμε. Ενώ τα δικά σου παιδικά χρόνια σημαδεύτηκαν από την ύπαιθρο και την αίσθηση μιας μεγάλης, αγαπημένης οικογένειας, εγώ μεγάλωσα αποκλειστικά υπό τη δική σου φροντίδα. Γεννήθηκες σε ένα σπίτι γεμάτο συγγενείς, που μετά σκορπίστηκαν στον κόσμο. Εγώ γεννήθηκα μόνος κι εσύ ήσουν μόνη. Ήσουν η μοναδική μου οικογένεια, κι εσύ είχες μόνο τις αναμνήσεις μιας οικογένειας.

Ήσουν ο κόσμος μου.

Όλα όσα είμαι—η δύναμή μου, το πείσμα μου, η αντοχή μου—προέρχονται από εσένα, που δεν είχες άλλη επιλογή από το να επιβιώσεις, που έκανες ό,τι καλύτερο μπορούσες με ελάχιστα μέσα. Κοίτα τι έχω χτίσει, μαμά· κοίτα αυτή την οικογένεια, τη γυναίκα με την οποία έφτιαξα τη ζωή μου, τα παιδιά που μεγαλώσαμε. Είναι ο καθρέφτης της δικής σου θυσίας. Είναι ο αντικατοπτρισμός αυτού που εσύ έκανες δυνατό για μένα.

Σε ευχαριστώ, μητέρα· σε ευχαριστώ που μου έδωσες τη δύναμη όχι απλώς να επιβιώσω, αλλά να ανθίσω.

my dearest Ioanna,

I’ve lied to you. I’ve said over the years that I dreamt you. That I dreamt of who you would be, the joy you would bring, the child that you were, and the young woman you are becoming.

This was a lie. I envisioned you.

it was first through writing. I was playing with this idea, a man and woman on the shore, having spent the night, with their children already playing at dawn, and the resignation of time, of the world, of what does a parent own of their children, of what they inevitably have to sacrifice to the world. The daughter was older than the son, l did not know it was you or mikey, it was an idea I was working through writing, having just been married and what it would mean to raise a family.

a year later or so, I was on the deck, thinking about how Mommy was now pregnant. On the second floor, in Yiayia and Papou’s house. Cigarette in hand, I took a drag, staring off to a horizon made jagged by chimneys and powerlines. I exhaled, and I saw it. I saw you. Not as you are now of course, but at 2, maybe 3. You were the girl on the shore, but you were now in a house, our home, you were the girl I was writing about. I came back in and told Mommy you were going to be a girl. She of course said, I just want the baby to be healthy.

But there you were, I was watching you play in the den and you decided to stumble out into the living room, climbing the scant stairs between here and there. There you were, that vision I had on the deck, the girl looking for shells on the shore. And of course, of course, when we do go to the beach, you are always looking for shells, for beauty in refuse, for that fragile thing that has survived the brutality of the tide.

We speak so often in this house how magical the love Mommy and I share has been, an alchemy of circumstance and time and chaos. But my life has been rife with magic, I had a vision, I tapped into something honest and gentle and extraordinary and oh so precious.

And there you are. Here you are.

Love, always,
me

my love,

I told you we were close, so close to the end. not the end of all things, not the end of a phase, but the end of waiting, the end of anticipation, the end of asking the question “what’s next?”

I see it, I see it so clearly that I want to live it now. I don’t want to try it on for size. I don’t want to imagine it anymore, I want to live it. That one weekend opened my eyes: I don’t have to wait, I can make room for it now. I have to make room for it now. Do you see me making room my love? Do you see me making this room for you, for us?

How patient you have been, how kind, how willing. Do you see what’s possible my love, do you see it before you and not some sort of fever dream? Some promise made of smoke and wisps? It’s literally in our hands, regardless of what happens next. We’re not at the cusp, we’re already in it.

Always,
me

my love,

typically i take these moments to write something artsy, something crafted, rife with memories and nostalgia, something crafted.

i do not want to do this now. i want instead to tell you, i am afraid. i am afraid of what you mean to me, of what my life would’ve been without you, of how much of my day to day silliness is predicated that you are my audience. i am afraid of how much i yearn to be around you, to know you are near, of how it is all meaningless without you.

yes, there are the kids, but they are not my partners. they have and will have their own problems to solve and lives to build. i built this life with you. and this year has been such a struggle, we’ve had so many scares. i never considered your mortality, being so obsessed with mine own, with work, with money, with the kids’ futures, until this last year. you cannot do this to me. you cannot leave me. i refuse it.

i refuse it because all of this is for one singular purpose: it is for us, it is for you. maybe because of my fears i have chosen hope. i have been driven to hope, to work for hope, to plan for a hopeful future. a future where i will sunbathe with my wife again. we will hike through a forest again. we will cuddle as the sun rises again. for a future where we will wander the streets of some city like we did in paris. to wander the streets of paris again, perhaps for our fiftieth.

all these little notes through the years revolve around the same themes, be it an anniversary, christmas, a birthday, valentines, it doesn’t matter. none of that matters. only you matter. because you are the key to all of this. thirty years ago you broke something in me. you shattered me into believing. you shattered me into dreaming.

you brought me to life.

love, always
me

dear mikey,

I have said, perhaps callously, I am living through you. I am excited for you. I am fearful for you.
I am fearful of you.

I remember Michael, I remember thinking I had it all figured out. I remember telling Papou, of all people, ya I know what heartbreak is. I cringe when I think about it.

But I was young. I was stubborn. I was right. What are you talking about, you stupid old man?
You’re the past. Your generation killed our future.
Can you not see how short sighted you are?
Can you not see how I have it all figured out?
I will clean up your mistakes.
I will do better.

Over thirty years later, I hug him tight so he can forgive me. Not because I was wrong, but because I was right.
He is the past. His generation did kill my future.
He is literally short sighted now. His eyes are a mess.
I did figure it all out but it came at a cost.
I could not clean up his mistakes.
I barely did better.

And I see you standing there at the doorway when we had this huge blowout, maybe you need to stop worrying about me, stop being obsessed with us, maybe you’re the one who needs help.

And all I really want is to sit with you.

I made a song, years ago, those silly loop things, it’s called sit with me dedicated to you. It starts with some guitar strings, gentle intermittent cymbal crashes that increase in intensity while two competing beats come together, a soft heartbeat in the background, sketchy beats that all fade into a haunting echo and then this flute comes in.

That’s you. The real you behind the haunting. The you I wish I could be a part of. It comes onto the scene: pleading, curious, free, light, twirling, alive.

A contrasting flute comes on, almost in harmony, a more cautious tone, and the two flutes dance, it goes back and forth, finding a pattern, a way to be in the same space. The cymbals slowly disrupt, and the haunting eventually returns, the flutes gone. The light strings step back into the spotlight and the quick beat of the world washes the rest away. At the end all we’re left with are the strings. It ends on a heartbeat.

And you’re my heartbeat Michael. Not my hopes, not my dreams. You’re the stammer and the fear and the thrill. The steady drum that tells me there’s a song out there where we are dancing, still dancing, despite all the time of the world.

love, always
me

53, do you remember me?

It’s all falling apart. This house of cards you built, this land you find yourself in. Always finding yourself, suddenly, without passion, exhausted at the sight, and no sweat to show for it. Cracks in the foundation, you got it all wrong and it’s crumbling.

You thought you were at the end, that the road paved before you, and as you go down this decline knowing it will be gentle at first only to accelerate, was ready to handle the momentum of everything you wrought. Instead, a patchwork of cracked lightning erupts alongside you, beneath you, and up ahead, chasm upon chasm, deep and wide and irreparable.

you have failed, there is no cruise control for you here.

And you scramble in your seat, desperate to get off this ride, hands against the tarmac, fingertips bleeding for purchase, and it mocks you, it laughs in your face. There is no stopping it now, it yells above the din of debris you are plowing through, this is the machine you built: you are it and this is the damage you’re leaving in your wake.

If only this was a dream and I could feeling nothing