Dear Mom,

Sorry there has been no communication for so long. I realized i hadn’t even replied to your very sweet letter from a couple of weeks ago about “smothering” me. It was very nice, even if I already knew, that you considered my feelings so much. It is also nice to know that we all keep growing and that you are continually investigating yourself and trying always to come to new levels of understanding about what motivates you, what makes you tick. For most people, it seems that this is not the case, most would rather find their niche(there are plenty readily available) and settle in and stop asking questions. It is the questions however that, even if they are agitating, give life meaning, especially when there are no easy solutions. As to your question about our relationship there fortunately is no easy solution. I don’t know any other Mother/Son relationship so I have none to compare it too. You, I guess, have your relationship with your Mother which must be complicated because it is nearly 60 years in the making at this point. The world was such a different place when you formed that relationship(not to mention how different the world was when Grandma formed her relationship to her mother) Multiple wars, telephones, television, the communists, rockandroll, money’s shifting values. When we look back and really look we see that our ethical ground was always shifting, the very things that we based our identities on were always in flux, so how could we ever know for certain what was right at a given moment. What were those decisions based on? What complex equation did we formulate to give ourselves the confidence to act. Where did all that certainty that maybe now seems dubious come from ? We can only shake our heads baffled, overwhelmed. However, this blackhole of the past does have a shape or at least a texture, and it seems to me that the contours that we begin to trace are only those of Love. Love only seems simple because it is able to  blast itself out of time and cut through history. Timeless, it is without culture or tradition and has no simple rights and wrongs. It is a subject without an object. It is map without names. It is certainly not something high and cultivated, love is the thick skin on the bottom of our feet. And it seems that it exist in a relationship between a mother and child.

all my love,

Cheyney

ps: everything is fine, here in naples.