i flew again on your birthday. that’s the excuse anyhow, for these weeks of greetingless-ness. but noticing that this makes for too many times of beginning with ‘sorry’ when the greeting finally comes, i don’t want to say sorry yet again——know i’ve already sucked the meaning of words dry these last years. too much has already been said, or if i did say it, something always warps and buckles along the way. bristles bend. it never feels right, and i detest this rightness. words overlap and cancel one another like low-res animations playing endlessly in an empty, unlit room.

actually it is now the third year in a row to be on an airplane on your birthday, perhaps the mark of a ritual. to be in air as excuse, to be full of air as metaphor, to be on flight mode as break of communication. to catch so much of your own breath there is no longer space for words. being in an airplane is kind of like that, anyhow, the quiet of disquiet, white noise turns pink turns brown, ears turn inwards.

perhaps rituals serve the same purpose: affirmations of meaning that do not really require words. small gestures repeated at certain intervals of time create affective knowledge, like knowing the amount of time before the sun’s blessings make Alÿsian-sized valleys of industrial blocks of ice. the valley of all that i could have said but did not spilled over the sides of the building, he sent American Greetings e-cards once a year, there was a click over a caress. she would rather say nothing at all than let it be said cheaply.

a no-rhythm rhythm. that’s the ritual. flight mode white-pink-brown noise, repetition, air-pressurised tinnitus, the rituals of getting older. i miss you sometimes and that is all. there is not much more efficacious beyond that. i really hope that you are happy, that your body fills with good air and songs of peace. the fact that i can no longer tell otherwise is perhaps the sign that there was no more space for me to know——air time——like the sound of a stranger’s breathing next to you on a long distance journey. it feels close because everything around is passing darkness, and you’re too timid to ask any more questions because you were once cursed for it. and because the best regard answers in words never bring you anywhere.

better to take a flight instead.

happy birthday and a new year, f