July 13, 1995

Dear Jeff,

I guess it's been nearly 10 years since we last heard from each other. My image is of you slapping around a bass guitar, a fat cigar protruding from your beard. Bet you've quit smoking by now. I wonder how Syd is doing, and in record stores always expect to find your son's name among the jazz CDs.

A few things have happened on this end:

After the inevitable breakup with D, I took a job in S. Cal. Tried surfing (too hard unless you're 12), went to way-too-cool clubs and, like James Taylor, let a red-headed woman make a fool out of me. It was fun for awhile. So is being a teen-ager.

I went north to the Bay Area, where the souls are quite a bit older. Found myself a weekly to edit. It was heavenly. Twenty-four movie screens within seven miles of my apartment. Two bookstores with readings scheduled every week.

Alexander Cockburn talked about rain forests, Susan Faludi about women getting shafted, and Gary Zukav about mysticism. Clapton, Neil Young, the Dead, JT, Tracy Chapman entertained at the local amphitheater.

Made a few friends, scanned the personals hoping the perfect woman would reveal herself in 25 words or less.

Something was missing.

The newspaper went bust competing with two dailies and three metros. Hung around awhile wondering what to do next. Sold the electric guitar to pay rent. Finally occurred to me to come home. Whoever said home is the place where they have to take you in knew my mom and dad.

When I was growing up, Cape Girardeau was a proud if quiet little river town with a college and a good semi-pro baseball team and what else do you need?

Now it has murals and traffic problems and chain stores and it's known as the birthplace of Rush Limbaugh. He thinks it's home, too.

I know Cape Girardeau as home because of my parents. My mom moved around a lot as a girl. She always said that was the reason she didn't take singing offers in St. Louis: to give us a place to call home.

I'm married now. To a hometown girl who also spent time in California. DC isn't perfect but might be ideal for me.

The search for the perfect mate is futile and destructive, it has taken me this long to learn.

Once you realize someone is incapable of perfection, the reasons to reject her are innumerable. What you can end up with instead of the perfect relationship is an acceptance of the other person AS THEY ARE. A realization that love, by definition, is unconditional. Beginning with the love you give yourself.

So here I am back where I started. The Tao ever returning to the source. The cultural slurry is not as rich as California or even upstate New York, but familial bedrock is where it is.

My nieces and nephew come calling from time to time. I watch them grow year to year, becoming persons, loving me and being loved without reservation.

My mom teaches my nieces to sew. We all play Wiffle Ball. The niece who's starting kindergarten this year swings like the next Henry Aaron.

Another niece has a golden voice but only sings if she thinks no one is listening. Whenever I'm around her, I listen instead of talk.

Yesterday I cleaned decades of dirt off the golf clubs given me for my 12th Christmas and gave them to my nephew. It felt good to be passing something along.

There is delight in exceptionally ordinary things. And the world is perfect when you let it be.

Love, Sam

~Sam Blackwell is a staff writer for the Southeast Missourian.