Dearest Greta,
Always an unbidden pleasure cyber-sauntering across a
fellow Young Columbus alum!!! Especially one who appears to be a fellow writer
as well!!!!! All apologies in advance for cultivating yer' curiosity. My name
is David Von Behren and I'm a writer living in Peoria, Illinois.
Half-a-lifetime ago I was on a trip that changed virtually every facet of my
life and over the last five years I've been (very) sporadically chiseling out a
memoir about that spring time European sojourn entitled "Pinta
Parade" or “On the ashes of his Youth Doth Lie,” I mostly write very big David Foster
Wallace/George Saunders influenced postmodern tomes licked with failure and joy
and endeavor to stave away from the sentimental-solipsistic "listen to the
story of my life" memoir shit, but there was something about that trip
which more or less sculpted out the ethos of my identity, ameliorated my
perspective of the planet and, invariably ushered me into the world of art as
both a passion and vocation.
At the time of the trip, I was a Freshman at an
inner-city high school which boasted the lowest I-sat scores in the state and
the highest teen pregnancy rate in the nation. I had never flown before and
there was something ethereal and sifting anchor-inside-chest heavy about that
fleeting dream cavort with strangers--being fifteen years of age and being
reeled off into a foreign copse for ten days with total scarlet-coated
strangers from disparate vistas of the US--watching as the planet opens and
closes like a misty sentimental lavender sunset yawn over the Thames only to be
yanked back, two weeks later, into your own reality, the circular glob of
red-coated adolescent strangers who seemingly swallowed your every step
suddenly vanished and lost and gone leaving the indelible Polaroid of your heart
just a tad faded.
This year I decided to say "fuck It" and
finish Pinta Parade. The book is about 200 pages as is, but I figured the best
way to do justice to the trip was to "relive" the trip day-by-day as
it transpired--I anticipate the novel being done in late April and finalized
sometime early fall. Dredging up fossils
of an ashy expired youth can be perilous but I would love to hear any
recollections or memories you might have from that trip. I found you on myspace
by searching through an old list of winners (sorry if you found it invasive).
I’ve found only a handful of other cohorts from our trip, and they are all now
fat and with children.
I remember you
vaguely from the trip having a conversation about vegetarianism with you as
well as your “deep thoughts” skit.
Anyway if you have time or feel like reminiscing I
would love to wallow in your memories from that sojourn—If not, no big deal at
all. From the sight of your profile it sounds like you are a playwright????
Helluva life isn’t it, girl?
All the best and in the immortal words of Rumi, “Let
the beauty you love, be what you do,”
and intrinsically who you are….
All the best and let the Beauty you love be what you
do,
David Von Behren
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