A Letter to Christina

Dearest Christina,

The speech is lovely, well done.  I can hear your voice when I read it and it is a comfort to know that the duty of it came to a person of such admirable quality.  I must say however, that the experience of your speech (for me) was different and, in a way, far from comforting.  It may be nothing more than envy and a special kind of sadness that brings this about, and while that is perhaps unfortunate; I believe, and I think that you will agree, that my emotions are valid.

The imagery in the speech is, in part, what does it.  I am jealous that you got to be there.  I am homesick for that sky, and that earth, the adobe, and those mountains, and the air that can be sharper than a knife.  Santa Fe is such a rooted and soulful place that so many of us shared together, that it just doesn't feel right not taking that final step as one, not finishing the dance; having the final note fall silent and the last word on the page gone missing.

In part, I am heartbroken, and angry about it; but there is no destruction without the courageous act of creation.  Rather foolishly, we built, on land that was not ours to keep, a structure that could not be recreated.  I am heartbroken, because it is the collective that was lost, the feeling of being connected, the be-longing that so silently slipped from my grasp.  And yet, there it is, running its fingers through the text of your speech, but failing to speak.  It didn't say, "I feel you, person-of-a-far-away-place."  It didn't say, "I know that your left arm and your right leg have been wounded, but in time they will heal."  It didn't say, "I can feel you, my children, though you can only feel my absence."

But it did say, "Your days of dreaming are not at an end."

In the city of Chicago, there was a graduation ceremony and when the awarding of diplomas began, a woman by the name of Susan Marcus spoke.  She explained to the thousands of people at the ceremony why there were seven people from another college graduating before all of their sons and daughters.  Up to this point, there was no mention why seven boys walked behind a sign that read, "College of Santa Fe".  There was no acknowledgment by any of the officials or speakers.  It was as if they were an accident, made vibrant in the best way by one of their own, for Susan knew them.  Seven accidents happened at the beginning of that part of the ceremony and then ceased to bother anyone.  There were five to seven hundred people graduating and the boys knew no more than a handful of them.  The names of the other five-to-seven-hundred called meant nothing, they had no substance, no weight, were just a droning.  Because there were seven of them, the boys were placed where they wouldn't take up too much time.  That meant that because the ceremonies were split by major into three graduating chunks, four writers, two film makers, and one musician from the College of Santa Fe were placed among graduates of sign language, television, radio, and english.

What I'd like to say to CSF is a big old FUCK YOU, followed by an equally heartfelt THANK YOU.  Fuck you for turning your back on me, fuck you for screwing up all my plans, fuck you for separating me from my wonderful friends, fuck you for making me jump through hoops to graduate, fuck you.  Thank you for all of the wonderful people, thank you for being in the desert, thank you for the inspiration, thank you for making me go to Chicago, thank you for making me (however reluctantly) love you, thank you.

With Love,

Anthony Valdez