APRIL 5, WEDNESDAY

LETTER TO MYRA

Myra Downie VanUxam was a classmate of mine at Woodstock School from which we graduated 70 years ago. She heard about my daily posts somehow but had the wrong address Billy baba.com instead of billybaba.com. So she wrote to me asking for the right address which I am sending her. But at the same time I began to wonder why she should bother to read what I write or why I even write my daily posts. This is my response to her.

Dear Myra,

The short answer to your question of why you can’t connect with me is that billybaba.com is all one word rather than Billy baba.com. But this got me to thinking about a longer answer. Why should you even bother to read billybaba.com?

My wife Kathe died on May 6 of 2021 of pancreatic cancer, which was only discovered three weeks before she died, probably because the pandemic prevented in person doctor’s visits. We had been entwined, one person rather than two, for 60 years and her death left a huge hole. We couldn’t have the memorial service until late August and suddenly the house seemed very empty. I had always travelled, visiting India every other year all my life, usually with students. Now the house seemed empty and I was free to travel. I went to Greece for a month in October, followed by a month in Germany and have been travelling for half the time since then for a month at a time: Paris, London, around America on Amtrak, Morocco and my current trip to India for a month followed by Europe for a month. I am in Haarlem, Netherlands right now with my daughter and son in law visiting Henny, the daughter of Kathe’s brother. We visited with her other two daughters earlier.

Before Greece I started to write a weekly post on WordPress. The original purpose was to reassure my son and daughter that I was alive and well by reporting daily on my trip. My son, in particular, was hesitant to have his 85 year old aching father take off around the world on his own. But he got used to it and and now rarely reads what I write. And my daughter was tempted again and again to join me so I wasn’t always alone. So why do I keep writing and why should you bother to read what I write?

It certainly isn’t because I fool myself into thinking I have anything profound to say. So if it isn’t to keep family informed, why do I do it? What keeps me writing? What even makes me write a long letter to you, since all you wanted was to have a space removed in the online address? I think the answer is that I enjoy writing and writing is made easier and more fun by thinking someone might read what I write. Really, even now, in my solitude, I am talking to myself and trying to figure out for myself why I keep writing with writing to you being an excuse to do it.

For the half time that I have been travelling I like taking photographs of my travels and putting them together with a narrative of what each day and each country feels like to me. That makes sense if what I am trying to do is to reassure people that I am still alive and kicking. But most people are interested in their own life and not someone else’s and probably skim through the photographs and then move on to something else. But I really like responding to people and places through photographs and like sharing a few of the hundreds that I take each day and am not too concerned with whether anyone enjoys looking at them or not.

But for the half the time when I am back in Swannanoa, North Carolina, where I have lived for 50 years I don’t feel the need to constantly photograph. During this period, which will begin next Thursday, I will shift to trying to be as aware as I can be about being here on earth with my time almost over. When I was in Mussoorie about a month ago I did the same thing. I was trying to figure out for myself why Woodstock and Landour had such a hold on me and why I kept returning. This was purely personal. It wasn’t why you or Marianna or Bob Fleming was touched by Woodstock, but why I was. And my answers were so personal that I don’t think they apply to anyone else. And that is true of much of my wondering about why I am here on earth and why other people act the way that they do, particularly MAGA people. It is just my attempt to deal with the tensions and delight for myself of being here on earth.

So why should you even bother to read this stuff, since it is personal and idiosyncratic and often a little cuckoo? I don’t have an answer to that, and realize that you will look at the pictures and skim over the rest if you even look at it at all, which I am not trying to persuade you to do. I guess it is because I am a social creature who enjoys talking to himself and wants to share with other people what he is going through. Whenever I enter a restaurant filled with people there is a racket of twittering chatter. We are talkers and need to tell each other what is going on with us. We feel a need to do that. So that is what my daily posts are, my chattering along to myself and anyone who cares to listen, nothing more and nothing less.

So be warned. And don’t feel bad if now that you can follow my daily chatter, over 500 daily entries so far, you are not interested or only occasionally curious or if you drop it after three days and never come back. I will keep on enjoying myself as I chatter away to myself and the thought that you or anyone else might be listening will help keep me going whether true or not. You don’t need to bother responding. I will keep going anyway, I think, though sometimes I have nothing to say and then go back and fill in the gaps. The fact that I keep going amazes even me. But I am an old man and have nothing else to do. These posts give me something to do each day. And I realize that my time on earth is about up and I am really curious about what is going on and want to figure out for myself what life is all about. So do what you want and don’t worry about my response, I’ll keep chattering.

And thanks for connecting with me in the first place. And if you feel a need to chatter, chatter away, and I’ll respond.

Your friend, Bill