Dear Readers,
Dramatic title to this week’s letter. I’m in an airport, and the nearest ending in sight is my stay here at this intersection of shopping and fresh haircuts and velour tracksuits. The next will be when the ‘plane smacks its tyres into the tarmac at DUB. After that it’ll be the end the car journey to my brother and soon-to-be-sister-in-law’s house. And then the end of a meal. And the end of an evening. And the end of a night’s sleep. The end belongs to the thing. My night’s sleep belongs to the night and not to me.
I have endings on my mind because I finished this incredible book last week. What a ride. I knew the end was coming. I could tell by the closing distance between my bookmark and the back cover and my increasing feeling of imminent loss. I absolutely did not want the story to end. You know how that feels. A story has a life, and the truth of a good life is that we don’t want anyone’s to end. We treasure or value it above everything else. It has some kind of sanctity, as we are reminded of with the passing this week of our queen, Hilary Mantel. She appeared to me in a dream last night and reminded me to wink more. True story.
The end of that that incredible book had me reeling. There was little sadness in it, but to describe it as having a happy ending wouldn’t be accurate. I’d recommend reading it. Anyway, I’ve been daydreaming about endings and they are everywhere. You could define a whole life as a series of them (file under: Things To Turn Into A Movie Starring A Young Hugh Grant) and I’ve been having a ton of fun thinking about them. The end of a book, yes, and a journey and a life and everything else above but then the end of a relationship and the end of a yawn and the end of a thought and the end of a song and the end of this letter.
Not quite. Or nearly. Because the end of something isn’t the end of it at all, is it? If The Muse is reading this I imagine she smiled at that. Whether you obey the laws of thermodynamics or not, the energy of something’s motion or heat or joy cannot disappear – it can only change into another kind of energy. All of my friendships and relationships that have ended are part of who I am, just as all of the books and films and stories that I’ve witnessed the endings to still exist in my perception and interpretation of connection to and (most importantly) my feelings about this wonderful world around us. Although, witnessed is not the right word. Maybe experienced is a better one. All of the pleasures and of the pains and all of it fleeting, impermanent. All things come to an end. Like this letter, at long last. Until next time, compañeros y compañeras.
Yours sincerely,
Paul