RELIGION

 My dear Peter,

The afterlife? Rebirth? Such questions! You won't be surprised--but maybe a bit disappointed--to know that I can't help you with this. It can't have escaped your notice that there are secrets that the dead can't share. (And besides, you do realize, don't you, that you're talking to yourself?) Still, we can talk about religion. I've always enjoyed doing that.

I never meant to force anything on you. Of course we were Christians, Peggy and I. That's how we were brought up. We went to church. We passed on our Christian stories to you and Flora--the birth of Christ, the Crucifixion and the Resurrection, and so on. You remember particularly those marvelous Peter stories, and I'm especially glad you found the hidden treasure in your name! There was just never any question about Christianity in those days. It was our whole history, our heritage. It's only recently that human beings have had the arrogance and the temerity to cast aside the wisdom of their elders without, it seems, a second thought. We were brought up to be more respectful of the past. 

You shared that respect, Peter, to judge by the guilt you felt about your loss of the Christian faith we brought you up with. It's to your credit that you did not cast the heritage aside lightly, thoughtlessly, without emotional and spiritual struggle. I wish only that you had brought those questions with me, rather than fear my disapproval. In your letters you mention your timidity in sexual matters. Yes. But don't you think it was that same timidity that stood between you and me and the conversations that you say you would have wanted? It's true that I have my part in it too. It's not that I was unaware of your loss of the faith I'd embraced as my life's work; I watched your struggle from afar, weighted down with my own doubts and guilts, and chose not to confront it. It was easier for me, as it was for you, to keep up the pretense, and for that I apologize. 

And yes, you are right about my doubts. They plagued me from the earliest days of my awakening to the responsibilities of life. You mention my running off to a monastery for fear of making the commitment to your mother and to the temporal life of marriage, children, and so on. I so much wanted to believe in God that I mistook His calling. And there was always some part of my rational mind that insisted it was all a fairy tale, that no such "God" existed, even as I was trying to convince others that He did. It was painful. It was a kind of slow torture that lasted many years. All my life, really. And--yes, again you're right--it showed up in the form of physical, body pain. My ulcers.

It was perhaps because of this that I resisted death when it approached. I did not want to die. Did not trust that heaven awaited. I hope for you that you're like your sister--ready, when the time comes. Much easier to slip into death without resistance, secure in the knowledge that it will catch up with you anyway. I think you understand this.

As to sin, I have to admit that it always seemed to me much more appealing than abstention! I struggled with that, too. There was some devil in me that sorely longed to be the sinner. That I succeeded (mostly!) in resisting temptation might be more attributed to what you call your timidity than any moral or natural restraint!

Ah, yes, Buddhism. I'm glad you found it. Truly. I know next to nothing about it, nor did I as a minister of Christ, but I'm sure I would have found much in common with your "Than Geoff"--as I did, in Judaism, with Mike. The ecumenism I discovered rather late in my life was really no more than a confirmation of what I had always believed, that the spiritual is an essential part of the human experience, no matter what particular form it takes. Life would be a very shallow thing without it.  I'm sure the meditation that you practice takes you deep into that realm where the petty circumstances of "real life" give way to the vast reaches of the unknown. I choose to call it "God," but I'm not sure there's much difference.

I was much moved to be reminded of that last blessing that you asked for as I lay dying in that hospital bed in Cardigan. I don't actually remember it myself, of course--I was already too dotty at the time to understand what was going on around me! But I'm glad that you insisted. I do believe in the power of blessing--that one human being with a full, loving heart can pass on that fulness and that love to fellow human beings. It need not even come as a formal laying on of hands--though that was my own preferred way of conferring blessing. It can be passed on silently, by the mere fact of common presence in a sacred moment. You may be reluctant to accept it, but I believe that you too have the qualities you need to give blessing, and I would encourage you to exercise that faculty as frequently as possible as you live through your last years. It is a gift, and one that is not given but earned. If I can offer one last piece of advice it is that you look for it in yourself, and value it.

There I go, on again as usual with my meanderings. I have to get on with my "afterlife"! But before I do, I'd like to offer you one last time that blessing that I gave you every Sunday as a child, the one I tried to give you, whether you knew it or not, every single day you honored or struggled with the life I gave you, with your mother, the one you had the wisdom to ask for when I died. Bless you, my son, for who you are, for the man you have become.

With love, your father, Harry

LOST

Dear Harry,

I woke three times last night, each time from one of those long, seemingly endless and compellingly real nightmares--and each time exhausted. I don't remember all the details--I should have sketched out the story after waking--but the theme of each was being lost and unable to find my way home. Two of them, I think--well, one, at least--involved a cell phone that refused to obey the usual commands. Someone had been fooling with it and I could not email, could not text, could not make a call to tell Ellie that I was alright, even though I had not yet been able to find the way back to my car and it was two o'clock in the morning. And two at least involved endless walking, walking, walking through strange streets and neighborhoods, unfamiliar landscapes--or scenes that had that worrying air of familiarity that you know very well but can't quite place. Which explains why I woke up exhausted. In one, I remember casting myself to the ground in utter despair, in front of a group of people I knew I was supposed to lead. I must have walked twenty miles in my sleep...

As a good Freudian yourself, I've no doubt you'd have good interpretations for my dreams. For me, the most obvious way to understand them is in the context of a letter I wrote just the other day, the one about the feeling of being lost in my adopted country, of feeling disconnected--"unmoored," I think, was the way I put it--and misplaced. No longer being "at home." 

Well, now it's Sunday morning again, Harry, and again I won't be going to church. I will, though, be going to Disney Hall for a concert this afternoon, and that's church enough for me. I'll have ample time for reflection while the orchestra does its stuff.

With love, as always,

Peter

MORE FROM HARRY

My dear Peter,

Sex! Well, you do seem to be a bit preoccupied by it, if I may say. It crops up rather frequently in your letters, so much so that it reawakens my interest in what I learned all those years ago at university from Sigmund Freud. But I like to think that my interest was more theoretical. You seem unduly interested in my own sex life and I have to say you'd find it rather dull. But more of that later.

First, and most importantly, it continues to pain me horribly that I failed to protect you as a child from that man--I can't bring myself to use his name--who abused your innocence. I should not have allowed myself to be taken in by his friendly invitation and--you're right--the prospect of a weekend away with Peggy was appealing. What you describe in your letter about your experience that weekend is simply appalling. Honestly, so too was my behavior. I do remember that time when I came to your room to talk to you about it afterwards; I should have been able to ask you, gently, to tell me more. I should have given you that hug you so much wanted. I was embarrassed, foolishly, and foolishly I assumed it would embarrass you. Is it too late for a father to ask forgiveness from his son? 

It pains me, too, now that I know about it, that your early sexual experiences were so guilt-ridden and confusing. (I'd be happy to take back that St. Swithun's prayer book that I gave you as a confirmation present, with its endless list of sins!) That you only had other boys with whom to share your first, rather clumsy sexual experiences is helpful in understanding your lack of confidence in your early relationships with women. It took you a long time to "grow up" in this regard, and what you describe as your "desire"--that libidinous drive for sex--was the cause of a great deal of hurt to those you loved, and those who loved you. You write a lot about falling in love, but often--I'll be honest--it had nothing to do with love and everything to do with sex.

There are several occasions in your letters when you are curious about myself, and my own experience with sex. You're aware, of course, that your mother and I were brought up in a very different world than the one that you grew up in. We were not encouraged to "experiment" with sex. Rather, the opposite. We were taught that it was something that belonged only in the bedroom, after marriage, between a husband and wife; and it was otherwise not mentioned. You write quite freely about masturbation, as though that were something perfectly normal and natural--and in retrospect I don't disagree. Perhaps I'm wiser now. You even want to know if I indulged, which have to say I think is rather rude of you! In our day it was called "self-abuse." We were warned that our wickedness would be betrayed to everyone in the world by the warts on our hands--I remember yours!--and the spots on our face. 

You ask too, on several occasions, whether I was ever unfaithful to your mother. Another rude question! The only thing I'm going to say about that is that I was tempted--as I suspect is every man with blood running through his veins. You mention the Bletchley girls who lived in the Rectory, and who wouldn't be tempted by these vivacious and, well, yes, sexy young women? But I was the parish priest! Even so, I couldn't help myself, I loved to flirt with them, in ways that would be considered horribly inappropriate today. But that was all harmless fun, wasn't it? Or does that attitude date me? Did I hurt anyone with my banter? I'll confess I never stopped to ask.

Anyway, Peter, all in all I'm glad that things are easier today. The "sexual revolution" in the middle of our century came too late for your mother and me to be much more than puzzled bystanders, but I recognize that it brought about greater freedom for both men and women. In many ways, it's a more enlightened time. But I do still wonder: how much freedom is too much, and how much happiness does it bring? And how much unhappiness results? And hurt? I don't want to get preachy, but you have only to look at your own history, as you yourself have described it,  to know that freedom exercised without limits or responsibility can cause great harm--to yourself as well as those you claim to love

I'm beginning to feel a bit like Father William in that Lewis Carroll poem. Remember? "Do you think I can listen all day to such stuff? Be off, or I'll kick you downstairs."  No, not really! I continue to enjoy reading what you have to say, and will have more to add by way of response in a later letter. We haven't talked about religion yet. Nor the afterlife...  

With love,

Your father, Harry

HAPPY THANKSGIVING

A pause to express my gratitude to those who have been following my "Dear Harry" letters from time to time. I'm especially thankful that there now seems to be a real possibility that a substantial collection of these letters will be published as a book. Please stay tuned. And please, if interested, consider entering your email address in the "subscribe" box to the right, which means only that you'll receive email updates to notify you of new entries. 

Happy Thanksgiving to all!

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FROM MY FATHER...

(Note: Peter here! I was as surprised as you will be to hear back from my father! Well, truthfully, not my father himself but me, listening to his voice...) 

My dear Peter,

It's my turn to write. This may come as a surprise, but I have been reading your many letters over these past few months--though I have to note that time means nothing to me now!--and paying close attention. That I write to you from "another place" does not mean that I'm unable to respond to everything you have to say. Well, perhaps not everything, because you have said so much, and I have enjoyed the memories that your letters inspired. But some of the big questions, some of the main ideas.

First, then, a big thank you for the letters. I don't like to boast but since you yourself suggest it, I think I can take a little bit of credit for your writing skills. One of the good things--and there were many not so good!--that you learned from me. As I think you Americans say these days, you "tell it like it is"! Or maybe this dates me. I have always had trouble keeping up with your American idioms. But you do tell it all so well. Sometimes your letters left me feeling a bit weepy. Sometimes, remembering those times, I laughed out loud.

Now to more serious matters. I'm glad that you re-read the many letters I wrote to you over the years and that you came to a kinder view of my role as your father. And I'm glad you noticed how often I doubted myself in that role (and you're right, I did always love to act the part!) It's true that I was not always the father I would have wanted to be. 

To my mind, the really big question was the one about sending you away to school when you were still so young. Was that really for your sake, you asked, with your best interests in mind? Well, as you yourself will concede, you did get the very best education a young man could wish for, at least in the academic sense. But you make it clear that it came at a cost to you. You had an excellent brain, by the end of it--but you were cut off from your heart. You had learned to armor yourself--your words--for fear of being hurt.

I see this now, Peter. I really do. Your letters are clear about the pain you felt at that early age, being separated from your family. You felt "sent away", as though you were not wanted. As though you were not loved. And I have to confess that I found it hard to make a show of the love I felt for you and Flora. It was not the way I was brought up myself. (And you're right, I think, looking that far back, to suggest that my mother's early death left a mark on me). I think it was the same for Peggy. It was just not in the tradition of our generation. More's the pity, I see now. I admire the ability to love more openly as it was learned by your generation and passed on to your children. Hugs are important. I learned that from you!

Your words now have me examining my own heart, my own motivations. I did honestly believe you'd get a better education at those boarding schools than you would have done at the local schools in Aspley Guise and, later, Bedford. Was there some class consciousness that went into that decision? Yes. I'll admit it. There was a bit of just plain snobbery involved. But also some history: it's the path I followed as a youngster. It's what I knew best, and trusted.

The other part of that question leaves me more uncomfortable. How much was it selfishness on my part to send you far away from home to go to school? Honestly, my illness was a real consideration. The constant pain was real. (I was tickled by the way you turned my "psychosomatic" diagnosis back on me. You're probably right!) Did I want you gone to spare myself further irritation? I like to think not. Did I want you gone so as to have your mother to myself? Oh, God, I hope not. My reflex response is NO, I'd never do such a thing. But there's a tiny itch in the back of my mind that thinks there might be at least a small element of truth in what you are suggesting. 

I'm going to take a break here, Peter. I know there are other important questions to address but they will have to wait. As things stand now, I no longer have the energy of youth. I promise I'll write again when I find time the time--as though that were a problem in all eternity! I'll end for the time being with this thought: I may not have showed it in the ways I should have or in ways you would have wanted, but I truly, deeply loved my son. My daughter, too, equally; but I loved my son. I loved you as a child and loved you as you grew up and became a man. I loved you for your doubts (like mine!) and faults (like mine!) and loved you for your struggles. I was immeasurably proud of your successes. I believe you know this now. I wish you had known it from the start. Well, from start to finish. 

There's much more to say, but that's enough for now. I'll sign off as I always did--and meant it! 

Affectionately, 

Your Father

THE GARDEN SHED

 Dear Harry,

You'll never guess how I spent the other morning. I'm usually at my computer keyboard hammering out a few more words as I'm doing now. But since completing the third draft of our "Dear Harry" book I have been taking a little time away from my usual pursuit. Unusual, though, for me to be spending time in the garden! (I should spend more time there! It's a good deal healthier for heart, mind and soul than the time I mis-spend worrying about the state of the nation and the world!)

It was a job that needed to be done. We have a long-neglected garden shed halfway down the long yard behind our house. Tall and narrow--some eight feet high, six wide, and a couple of feet deep--this wooden structure had been home to a few mostly unused gardening tools and multiple generations of assorted creepy-crawlies over the years, and had accumulated more than two decades of dust and dirt, and thick, looping, almost impenetrable spiderwebs.

I set to work first with a broom, reaching far up into the corners to sweep aside the densest layer of webs. Cleaning some of the dust from a high shelf, I soon realized that it was foolish to be working without a mask; the air was so thick with heavy particles as to be unbreathable. I took a break and climbed back up the long path and the steps (did I mention that we're located on the slope of a steep hill; and that my recent hip replacement surgery is not yet fully healed?) to the house. Lucky that the pandemic has left us with a good supply of face masks! I found a sturdy one and, for good measure, armed myself with a handy whisk broom to help out with the cleaning.

A half hour later I had the roof of the shed and that high shelf cleaned, and the walls brushed off to my satisfaction with the whisk broom. Time to take care of the floor, with its three-inch accumulation of solid, impacted dirt. That long-disused shovel proved its worth, along with a trowel to dig out the corners. Bending down that far and scooping up heavy shovels of dirt proved a challenge with my still gimpy leg, and by this time I was sweating profusely with the effort. 

Still, slowly, slowly a solid concrete floor began to reveal itself and soon there was nothing left but to use the broom to sweep away the last remnants of dirt. I was delighted to find myself rewarded with the imprint of several paw marks that had been made before the concrete dried and the inscription: SPUTNIK THE CAT, 1986.

That was the bonus, Harry. The real reward, as you well know, was the satisfaction of knowing it was a job well done. The gardening shed can wait for another 35 years, for all I care, before it needs another cleaning out. And someone other than myself will need to do the job.

By the way, I heard from a publisher today with an enthusiastic reaction to the "Dear Harry" manuscript I sent. "An immersive and powerful collection of letters," they said. And even offered me a contract, which I'll need time to think about.

With love, as always, Peter

ACUPUNCTURE

Dear Harry,

You would not have heard of it. Acupuncture is an ancient Chinese form of medicine still in widespread practice today. It involves the insertion of thin needles at strategic places in the body to promote the proper flow of qi, the life force, to all parts of the body. Some say this is fanciful, unscientific--and certainly it is so if you apply the rules of strictly Western rational scientific theory. Still, it has worked, empirically, since centuries before Western medicine and drugs were the accepted form of treatment for disease.

I mention this because I am currently myself experiencing a course of acupuncture treatments. It was recommended by a traditional Western doctor in my HMO (health management organization; no National Health in America, of course! No "socialized medicine" here!) as a way to address recurring pain from my hip replacement surgery earlier this year. 

The office I visit is, I suspect, a Chinese family affair. It's unclear how much English is understood. No matter. There's a good deal of pure intuition involved. No "bedside manner." The office is a little dingy, communication minimal. I lie flat on my back while the acupuncturist inserts the needles--mostly painlessly, now and then a little pricking sensation--and leaves them in place while she disappears for fifteen or twenty minutes. Then I'm invited to try "cupping" and massage for an additional $30. I have been indulging in this extra. Cupping involves multiple small "cups" which are placed on the back and (it seems; I can't actually see because obviously I'm face down) vacuum-suctioned in place for a further fifteen to twenty minutes.

The massage that follows is unlike any other I've ever had. It's short--ten minutes or so--and vigorous, starting with the back of the head and neck and working down the spine. Almost chiropractic--another medical practice which is now much more generally accepted than in your day., Harry But I think you would have liked it all. You were certainly open to alternative medical treatments including--we have talked about this before--the laying on of hands. Faith healing. Sometimes it worked. Remember the story of the local blacksmith, a wart charmer, who cured my warts?

Is this course of treatments working for me? Hard to say. Healing, in my experience, is never an overnight process. I will say that I noticed a remarkable improvement after just the first treatment, but I could not be sure whether this was in my body or my head. I did want to feel better, so maybe that was enough. But anyway I decided to continue with the treatments. My HMO pays for all but $5. The extra $30 is on me. But it strikes me as a very good deal, Harry, wouldn't you say?

I wish you had been able to find more effective treatments for your pain. You did suffer, and throughout your life, from a variety of ailments. Would acupuncture have helped? Who knows? I'm sure your would have been willing to try, as you tried so many other things. But anyway, you're beyond pain now. Perhaps that's good

With love, Peter

TELEPHONES

 Dear Harry,

I'm trying to remember where the telephone was in the Rectory at Aspley Guise during the war. I just can't place it. We must have had one. Perhaps it was used to rarely in those days that I can't remember where it was located. Same with the Vicarage at Braughing. The first telephone I can actually remember in any of our houses was at Sharnbrook. It was on a shelf at the far end of the hall, by the door to the kitchen. Only one, of course. Who would had more than one phone in a private home? A big black receiver placed on the main, boxy body and attached to it by a long, woven cord. 

Our telephone number was three digits, as much as was needed for the entire village.  Anything outside the village--to Bedford, say, a few miles to the south--was a toll call. Anything further required the assistance of an operator. Toll calls could get expensive, so we kept them very brief. No chit-chat. And there was a box that stood beside it with a coin slot in the top so that people (we had boarders in those days) could put the money in to pay for their calls. It was an honor system.

You'd be amazed, Harry, by my telephone today. I carry it around with me, in my shirt pocket! It's flat, smaller than one of those packs of twenty cigarettes--Players or Senior Service--and it weighs not much more. My number is ten digits, including an area code. And each country has its own code, so that I can dial direct, any time, day or night. Except you don't dial, these days, you punch in numbers on a little keyboard. England's country code is 44. I can call Matthew any time I want. Or the grandchildren. Better still, I can "Facetime" them. Imagine, the front of the phone is a screen where I can see their faces as they're talking! 

But that's just the beginning. On my telephone, I can check the weather. I can summon up a radar map to see what weather conditions are headed out way. I can check the stock market in New York or London or Japan, minute by minute. I can write letters to my friends and family; I send them off with a click and they reach the recipient instantaneously. I can read any newspaper, anywhere in the world. I can read more books than you'd find in your local library. I can watch television, movies, news. I can play games (Peggy would love the different versions of solitaire!) I can go to the market and buy my whole list of food, to be delivered to my door. I can order food from local restaurants. I can tell the time or see the weather in any art of the world. I can take pictures with my telephone, Harry! I don't have to send them off to be "developed" and wait a week for the prints to be returned. I can see the images instantaneously and send them out to be printed on the machine I have in my office. I can do all this "remote", wirelessly, without having to connect at all!

And all the above is just to scratch the surface of what this tiny, hand-held device can do. 

So yes, Harry, you'd be amazed. I am myself amazed. But this kind of "progress" comes at a cost. Like everyone else I know, I'm tied to my telephone. I'm easy to reach, even by people I don't know, even by people trying to sell me things or get me to vote for one politician or another. It's a constant source of annoying pestering. Worse, the thing is addictive. Go out to a restaurant these days and you'll find that half the people there are not talking to anyone, not even those who share their table, they're glued to the little screen on their telephone. Walk down the street, it's the same. Everyone walking along paying more attention to their phone that to what's happening all around them. People actually get killed that way! 

So this instrument that was supposed to connect people has the opposite effect. It's alienating. It no longer serves, it lords it over us, demanding constant attention. All in all, Harry, I'm beginning to think I'd rather have the telephone that sat on the shelf at the back of the hall in the vicarage at Sharnbrook. 

With love, Peter

DISTRESS

Dear Harry,

This will be a hard one to write because it's so hard to describe in words. I wish we could sit down in person to talk about these things. Not possible, of course. But I wonder if you ever experienced anything similar to what I'm experiencing right now? 

I woke this morning once again in deep distress. It's not depression so much--though that may be a part of it. More accurately, it's sense of dislocation, of desperation, a sense of having been cut adrift from the moorings on which I have relied these many years and heading uncontrollably downstream toward some unknowable disaster. 

All my life I have considered myself a rational man--reasonable in all things, intelligent, well-thought of, relatively calm and relatively secure. Of course I have had my moments of insecurity. There have been worries about money along the way, and worries about jobs: where would I find the next one? And the personal ones: am I good enough? Am I happy? And so on.

But I have always had what I think of as the moorings, the basic truths about myself and the world around me, the things I can rely on. This feeling is different. It's not so much in my personal life. I have family, friends, relative financial security, a social environment that is by any measure enviable, privileged. I live in a neighborhood that is protected from the instability that threatens others.

No, this dis-ease is bigger than all that, bigger than my little self, bigger than the reasonable, thoughtful and considerate man I still believe myself to be. It's existential. That big. When I say I feel unmoored it's in the bigger context of a world in which I no longer feel at home, where all the values I once cherished, and still consider in my heart and mind to be foundational have been cast aside in the rush toward a future that is now uncertain--not only for myself but for humanity at large.

Even here in my own house, amongst my own family and friends, I am oppressed down the the roots of my being by this feeling of existential not-belonging, of being superfluous, superannuated, irrelevant. 

Is it age, Harry? Did you begin to feel the same when you were my age--not long before your death? I know that's a part of it. The alienation echoes what I'm feeling in my body. Not quite there. There is the pain, of course, that results not only from my hip replacement surgery but occurs everywhere--knees, feet, neck and back. The body ages. Nothing to be done about that except to keep as fit as diet, exercise, rest and medical attention will allow. 

So yes, the body is a part of it. And no. The distress is much bigger than the body. And in its way more painful because it is all-consuming. I find it helpful to sit in meditation and am grateful for the now more than 25 years I have dedicated to learning, learning, learning as best I can how to do it, where it can lead me, the serenity it can bring. 

Still that refuge is, in my experience these days, a temporary and deficient one. I obviously have more to learn. But everywhere I turn I seem to "know" that part of it already. I have read it, thought about it, internalized it, practiced it. And still there is something missing somewhere deep inside, and I don't know what it is.

I wish we could talk about this, Harry. I really do. I think you would have some wisdom that I don't. Even though I know you struggled with it, you had religion. Is that it? Faith? Trust in some power greater than we foolish human beings. Something beyond both reason and unreason? Salvation? Redemption? Belief in an afterlife, in heaven, with God?

I'm thinking now the missing piece might be just... surrender.

With love. Your son, Peter

AT THE DENTIST

Dear Harry,

I had an appointment with the dentist yesterday. Dr. Joe reminded me that I've been visiting his office since 1995; so, more than 25 years. A good thing. It was he who first put the fear of G*d in me about my teeth. I'd lose them all, he told me, if I didn't start to floss.

Well-meaning dental hygienists had told me this before. When I first brought my teeth to an American dentist he was horrified.  English dentistry has a bad reputation over here, especially for those of us who were born in the first half of the 20th century. I hope things have improved since then, but I know that you had lost every one of your teeth by the time you were my age. The ones you had were kept in a jar on the bathroom shelf. They needed to be taken out every night and put back in the morning. Peggy's were not much better. 

I remember it was torture going to the dentist as a child. Flora and I were terrified. For simple fillings, as I remember it, they didn't even use novocaine in those days. That was reserved for major jobs, extractions, and so on. Even the smallest filling was an agonizing encounter with the dreaded drill. The sound alone was enough to induce excruciating pain... and that was before the drill hit the nerve.

Did you ever hear of flossing, Harry? I doubt it. It was unheard of in our day--at least by the time I left England for good around 1960--and I was not about to start such a heathen practice just because I'd arrived in America. That lasted until I started out with Dr. Joe, an unsparing and determined task-master of Asian descent, who told me I'd lose all my teeth in a matter of years if I failed to change my ways. 

I have flossed ever since. Every evening. Well, except when I forget. Which is not very often these days. My report yesterday was excellent. My bottom teeth were in good shape, my top teeth "immaculate." They'll serve me well, says Dr. Joe, "for another 25 years."

Which is fine by me. I'll be 110 years old.

Your son in good dental health, Peter

15 NOVEMBER, 2021

Dear Harry,

We're looking for refuge, Ellie and I. They say to switch it all off, to stop listening to the news, stop watching television. Disconnect from the Internet. But that's hard. You raised me with a sense of responsibility to know about the world and to do what I could to make changes where I saw them to be needed. Even at my age, I feel that tug of conscience: I can't just let it happen.

But there it is. It's happening, and we feel powerless to stop it. They also say that old people always look back to their younger days when things were so much better. But they were. Even with war raging, when I was a child, there was a common commitment to the survival/restoration of a society governed by mutual welfare, justice, fairness. There was some common agreement on what was factually true, and what was not. There were conservatives, yes, and socialists, and profound disagreements on the best course to take. But those disagreements were open to rational discussion and could be settled by compromise on either side. 

Those days are gone, Harry, at least here in America and increasingly throughout the world. There are so many human beings, some greedily consuming what they can while they can get it, millions of others just desperate for the basic food and water they need to survive. We are destroying the planet with our obsessive concern only for ourselves and our own needs. Here in America, the remaining voices of reason are shouted down by widespread anger and resentment and those eager to exploit it. Talk of violence proliferates, as does the sale of guns. We are manipulated by invisible overlords who steal our very lives for their own profit.

But where to go? Even if we found a place of refuge in some remote, disconnected part of the planet, we have family ties that we would never want to break. We feel stuck. I hate feeling like this, Harry. But that's how it is.

Sorry to disturb you in your place of eternal rest! 

With love, Peter

13 NOVEMBER

 I have come to the realization that this is not the place for the remaining letters in my "Dear Harry" book. It is now close to 350 pages, and complete in a third draft. I have published quite a number of the letters here, but I have reached a point where they become too personal and affect other people--not unpleasantly, for sure, but in ways that leave me feeling uncomfortable. They are better kept between the pages of a book. I hope to find some way to publish them in that format, and will certainly announce that here if and when it happens.

In the meantime... I woke thinking that the "Dear Harry" format cold also be repurposed. For years I have been putting out occasional, sometimes daily reflections on matters of personal, political, philosophical, even spiritual interest. Why not continue to do so under the guise of these "Letters to my Father." He is long gone, of course, but we can maintain the fiction. As in the following:

Dear Harry,

I wonder what you'd have thought if I had told you that here, in this country where I have now lived the better part of my life, there are places where people are permitted--encouraged, even--to walk around armed in public places with military assault weapons slung over their shoulders? To what end? For show, perhaps, to parade their macho credentials, to intimidate those who have political opinions other than their own... 

You'd think this was utter madness, no? I think so, too. Worse still, they get to use them. There is a man--a boy, really, 18 years old--who is currently on trial in Wisconsin for having killed two men and wounded another after bringing one of those weapons to a scene of violent social upheaval, with the intent, as I understand it, of "protecting property." He used it instead, he now claims, to protect himself. But what was this child, then 17, doing there in the first place with a weapon of this kind? Dropped off, for God's sake, by his mother. With his gun!

There is a madness in American culture. The gun is at the center of it. As is, it now becomes apparent, the cause of white identity. As in Germany in the 1930s--can you believe this, Harry?--we are beset by the threat of right-wing extremist bullies, fascists, really, fed with the delusional lies of a would-be dictator and ready to do violence to protect the white race.

Oh, Harry, you would be as appalled as I am.

Your son, Peter

3 NOVEMBER, 2021

Looking back at some of the letters that preceded this one, I think I understand more about what has discouraged me from posting them: they are too personal, affecting others than myself. I think/hope it might be easier to put them out into the world between the covers of a book. Meantime, be aware that I have skipped over quite a number of those letters before resuming here...

Dear Harry,

So I promised you more about Norman, the fellow poet whose friendship contributed to a huge, irreversible change in my life and the way I see the world.

It was that same summer. He was invited down to visit friends on a farm some way to the south, not far from Hannibal, Missouri, and asked me if I’d like to join him for the drive. Of course I agreed. I was free, after all, to do anything I cared to. The drive was a spectacular one, through lovely hilly, wooded countryside to a spot so remote, amidst the hills, there was no other human habitation anywhere in sight. To complete the dreamscape, Norman’s friends—a man and a woman with a horde of untamed children—came out to greet us in the flowing white garments of true flower children. I could have imagined garlands in their hair. Our supper was a simple one: artichokes, with a butter dip for the leaves. I had never seen this kind of artichoke before, let alone eaten one, and I found the taste delicious.

Was there bread? Wine? Perhaps. I don’t recall.

But I do remember the thunderstorm that followed, in the night. I promise, Harry, you have never experienced anything like a storm in the American Midwest. Our English storms are polite affairs beside these monsters, with lightning strikes that split the endless sky, thunder that roils the countryside, and often hail—sometimes the size of golf balls, sometimes even larger; on one occasion, in Iowa City, great chunks of ice came tumbling out of a black-green sky, so big that the bodywork of every car in the city unprotected by garage or carport was left badly dented). You would be awed, as I was, always, by these giant storms and by the threat of killer tornados they bring with them. I remember standing at the window of my room that night and gazing out in wonder, and perhaps some fear, inspired by the raw power unleashed by nature at its wildest.

The next morning arrived bright, still, serene, the grass and leaves still glistening from the rain the night before. Was there breakfast? I have no memory of sitting down with the family to eat—but I found Norman and his friend standing by the refrigerator engaged in some kind of serious debate, which was resolved only when they showed me a little tab and asked me if I’d like to join them on an “acid trip.”
br> Acid! While I had been smoking marijuana quite a bit that summer, I still harbored a good deal of fear when it came to drugs. I had heard about LSD, of course, who hadn’t? Psychedelics flourished, and not only in the music I had come to love. It had certainly never occurred to me that this might be the purpose of Norman’s trip; but now, confronted with a new challenge to my fears… I could not say no. I laid the proffered tab on my tongue and washed it down with a glass of water.

We walked out away from the farm, the three of us, down towards what I’d learned was called the Femme Osage Creek. There was the legend of some Indian woman involved, many years before. Perhaps she still haunted this lovely landscape… At first I was unimpressed. I thought that nothing much had happened, aside from perhaps a sharpening of color, a brightening of perception. I began to wonder what the fuss was all about.

But then it hit. I realized I was no longer in the world I thought I knew. I found myself sitting naked in the creek, gazing down into the shallows where crawdads darted along a bed of smooth, brown stones below the surface of the water. I could see Norman sitting way upstream from me, naked also, gazing like myself into the wondrous aspect of a world that had started to reveal itself, everywhere, in its true nature. Everything—trees, rocks, birds, fields of grass, wildflowers—everything was suddenly, vibrantly alive, and everything, everything was in the process of communication, all things with each other, and everything with me. The normal barriers of perception vanished; I could see, I could hear, and better still I could absolutely understand everything around me. We were one. There was no mystery, only glorious, all-embracing clarity. It all made sense. The sudden, scarlet flash of a cardinal against the lush green of the trees was a message I could readily understand, reflecting the inner untrammeled elation that I felt.

How long did it last, that feeling? I don’t know. It could have been hours. It was only later that day that I began to realize I had been separated from my friends. Where was I? Had they left me? The realization that I was all alone and still in this strangely altered state of mind began to translate into a gripping fear. I was cold. Darkness had begun to fall. I was disoriented, unsure which way would lead back to the farmhouse, back to other people in this vast emptiness. Had I lost my mind, along with my sense of direction? Something like panic started to set in as I looked around in vain for some recognizable landmark…

I walked and walked. I walked until I was so tired I was not sure I could walk further and only then, with inexpressible relief, caught sight of the farm we’d started from. Norman came out to greet me. “We were quite worried about you,” he said. “We wondered where you’d got to.” I fell into his arms.

Was this a kind of religious ecstasy, I ask myself in retrospect? Did you, Harry, ever experience anything of the kind? The reason I tell you about it is that the experience proved to be not limited to that one day. It left a profound and permanent mark on my understanding of the world and my place in it. I never again experimented with the drug. I never felt the need or the desire to do so, knowing that the change had already happened, that my perception would never again be quite as it had been before. I wrote s series of prose poems and gave it the title “Femme Osage.”

If you challenge me I will readily admit that there was something false, something artificial in this new sense of liberation I’d acquired. But there was also something profoundly true. Aldous Huxley wrote about it in “The Doors of Perception”, and while I have not read this book for many years, I know it was an effort to expand the realm of consciousness to areas as yet unexplored. I’ll have more to share with you about all this in due course, when I tell you something of my own (“religious”? “spiritual”?) conversion.

In gratefully remembered ecstasy, your son, Peter  

A NOTE

I see that it's nearly a month now since I posted here. I'm not sure what's holding me up. There's no shortage of letters. I think maybe it's the time it takes, and the distraction from what has become my main purpose: to make a book of these letters and find some further way to put them out into the world. Still, the "Dear Harry" blog has been on my mind. I intend to get back to it...