Road to Arcadia

A Letter to You: For when you open your eyes, for when you hear your first song

Don't ask how we got here, because it doesn't matter.

What matters is where we are now and how we are going to keep moving forward.

...

I should amend my first statement.

Don't get me wrong, starbeam, it's important to study the past so you are prepared to not doom your own future—in fact, these days it's imperative. But what I'm talking about isn't damning the past to the void of forgetfulness. It was the plodding. It was the constant treading of feet that everyone took on our way here. Instead of taking a good hard look at all the things going to hell around us, everyone just sat back and asked, "What is happening? When did everything get so bad? This is not the way things used to be."

You cannot put out a fire if you do not first acknowledge that there is burning, starbeam. Let that be your first lesson.

The second being: if you see a fire, you yourself must be the one to put it out. Don't depend on the others around you to step in first. They're looking at you to do the same.

That's how we got here, if you really need to know, starbeam.

I will let you in on a secret: hell is not a one beat song. It is a symphony preceded by an overture. It plays its motifs far in advance and doesn't care if anyone takes notice.

They did this to us. They saw the fire coming from well beyond the horizon and decided that it wasn't going to be their problem. They gifted their children coal and their grandchildren ash and asked us to be grateful for it. We are here today, starbeam, because no one had the decency to ask us if we wanted to keep breathing.

It doesn't matter who 'they' are. They don't deserve to have their names memorialized. They don't deserve their faces in the history books, living forever in the memories of future generations. You'll know who they are when you meet them. You won't even have to ask their names. Trust me on that, starbeam.

Names don't work the same as they used to, you have to understand. The people here have grown so afraid of invoking the terror that lead us here they don't even dare invoke the spirits of the past. Our hometowns have become faceless. Labels on maps are nothing more than letters on a page anymore. The letters remaining on passing signs are used solely for reference, rarely ever containing pride of its residents. I couldn't even tell you the last time I told someone where I was from.

I'm sorry that you will have to be born in this world. I don't think it's fair to be brought into an existence where dying is the best option.

But please, please, don't get me wrong, starbeam. You are not a mistake. Your existence is not doomed to the circumstances of your birth. It is going to be hard, yes, but you have the opportunity that so many of us wish we had. You have the ability to make things better.

It's too late to make the wrongs right, we have to recognize that, but as long as we are breathing there is still means to clear the dust from the air and wash the soot off this scorched earth. We are breathing in these toxic fumes today in hopes that you will one day be able to see through the haze.

I'm sorry that I won't be there for you in the beginning. I won't be there to see you open your eyes for the first time or cry the first of many, many tears. But you have to trust that I am out here clearing the way for you, starbeam. I am making a path for the horizon and one day I will see you there. I hope it's soon. Oh god, I hope it's so much sooner than it is later.

I know you won't worry for me, starbeam. You have so much already there for you in a world that has so little left to give. Your mother is going to be so beautiful. She's going to love you in ways I never will be able to. She's naïve and inexperienced, but she is so optimistic--which is more than I can say for myself. I don't know your father, but maybe that's something you could tell me about when I see you in the future.

I only ask that you remember my name, starbeam. I know that's unfair of me to ask when right now I don't even know yours. As in, you don't have a name, a face. Right now you are as much made of hope as the future is. And that is as beautiful as it is scary. But please, keep my name alive. I don't know what the blurred horizon holds, but in case it swallows me whole this is the only way a part of me can stay alive.

That's a lot to ask of you, I realize that. Believe me. It's so much to ask of you to carry the world on your small shoulders, to carry on the legacy of a dying era. But I wouldn't ask you to if I didn't know you could do it. We share blood, you and me. The same fire that beats through my heart burns through yours. You will not just be born, starbeam. You will be forged.

Until then, I will forge onward, in search of that horizon. Rest assured, starbeam. We will meet someday. And I am so, so looking forward to it.

With all of my love,

KG