Dear Eliot

Dear Eliot,

I use your first name only to avoid violate anybody’s privacy.

I just finally learned about LIMITATIONS.

I was forming the idea of “acting out the soul of my childhood” which I may in some way or sense do.

After acting out the soul of Auschwitz –which I did all my life.

I claimed I would “act” the soul of Hiroshima and Nagasaki as well and over several nights I tried to make a concerted effort to discover that but it was blind to me.

I have limitations and that is one.

I really don’t know much about it, I realized. I am so numb to pain that I thought I might be someone who could help in that regard. I learned that I could only give my respect. And to leave the rest to people who know and, if there aren’t any, I have to admit defeat.

The point of it was a purgation. Maybe the problem is that that is a Christian concept.

You told me when you sent me home from college that I “needed to learn my limitations” and I didn’t know what that meant. I was in way over my head and needed a rescue. So I swam home and got dunned by my mother. The rest is known. I’ve been chasing the Holy Grail of living up to my alma mater ever since.

Now this?

Actually, it is a relief.