Dear Murtaza:

“Not just my time, but the help you wanted“- you offered that I take as much help from you as I want to take. A very generous offer. I don’t remember ever doing that, taking such help, as much as I want.

“You did, with a good reason, and I understood why“- clearly I did not perceive you correctly on both occasions. Like I wrote to you before, you are more perceptive than I am, still. On both occasions I saw a part of the picture as if it was the whole picture. My picture/ perception was limited.

“I didn’t thought that this small thing i gave mean so much to you“- it still does.

“It seems so small to ask for, i just felt that one of the reasons might be is because you are alone(?)“- I didn’t understand that kind-of question “because you are alone (?)”- can you restate?

“I was very angry when you first told me, it always bothered me when I see injustice happening, when I hear about it, makes me both frustrated and bit angry, although I haven’t felt that in a while, because there was no one, I told you that my feelings are valuable to me, and I channel them to the people I think worth it“- it is a good concept, to consider one’s feelings valuable and selecting who to feel them for, and who to not feel them for. Or who to.. keep feeling them for.

“Yes she is (proud of her big brother)“- that makes me say a mental Ohhhhh !

“When I think about living in a different place, I just imagine how my persona would crash with other people, in a good way, it would be interesting to talk to norimes, sometimes“- recently in communication with you I adopted my own definition of normie, one I feel strongly about, personally: a normie is a person who defends and excuses an abusive parent at the expense of the abused child/ adult-child. Imagining you at the taproom, imagining you interacting with the regulars there.. I wonder.

“If i can go to any country, I would choose the coldest one, I know i will miss the sun, but it’s better, I imagine that it’s so cold, that I grab my blanket, or better grab a person, though the latter is bit expensive, and just sleep restfully, I would imagine going out, at first its so cold, but then your body adjust, I would imagine going outside drinking coffee, smoking”-

– imagine not grabbing a person. Imagine a person coming to you, offering to be with you willingly, generously.. like you offered me help, to take as much as I want of it. Regarding the cold, what I found out about living as north as I am living for the first time in my life is that the problem about winter is wetness and ICE, people slip and fall walking: a neighbor slipped and fell on her wet porch and is suffering from pain for years now, in her hip, staying up at nights because it hurts, a server at the taproom slipped on ice on her porch, same kind of years of pain in her lower back.. I slipped on ice walking and thought I would die.. accidents, people driving on icy roads, losing control.

I guess global warming is taking care of this problem as ice is melting in the poles, north and south.

“they assume the world is fair, thus their work, their effort must be rewarded, they deserve it, because they worked for it, this is good on paper, but in real life it can disappoint so many people, they work without reward, where is the deserving part?”- it stayed in my mind when/ ever since I saw the movie Unforgiven: The sheriff said to Clint Eastwood who pointed a gun at the sheriff: “I don’t deserve to die like this. Clint Eastwood then said: “Deserves got nothing to do with it” and shot him. Sometimes it happens that we deserve something good and we get it, often it does not.

Mary and Max, Wikipedia: Mary is an 8-year old lives a lonely life in Victoria, Australia. At school, she is teased by her classmates because of a birthmark on her forehead. At home, her distant father, and alcoholic mother, provide little support. One day, while at the post office with her mother, Mary spots a NY City telephone book, randomly chooses a name: Max Jerry Horowitz, and writes him a letter in the hope that he will become her pen pal.

Max is a morbidly obese 44-year-old Jewish atheist who has trouble forming close bonds with other people, due to various mental and social problems. Though Mary’s letter initially gives him an anxiety attack, he decides to write back to her, and the two quickly become friends (partly due to their shared love of chocolate and a show called The Noblets). When Mary later asks Max about love, he suffers a severe anxiety attack and is institutionalized for eight months. After his release, he is hesitant to write to Mary again for some time, and Mary becomes despondent, thinking Max has abandoned her.

On his 48th birthday, Max wins the New York Lottery and uses his winnings to buy a lifetime supply of chocolate and an entire collection of Noblets figurines. Meanwhile, Mary becomes despondent, thinking Max has abandoned her. On the advice of his therapist, Max finally writes back to Mary and explains he has been diagnosed with Asperger Syndrome. Mary is thrilled to hear from him again, and the two continue their correspondence for the next several years.

Mary goes to a university, her birthmark surgically removed, and she develops a crush on her neighbor and later marries him. Inspired by her friendship with Max, Mary studies psychology at university, writing her doctoral dissertation on Asperger syndrome with Max as her case study. She plans to have her dissertation published as a book, but when Max receives a copy from her, he is infuriated, believing that she has taken advantage of his condition, which he sees as an integral part of his personality and not a disability that needs to be cured.

Feeling betrayed and unable to put his emotions into words, he breaks off communication with Mary (by removing the letter “M” from his typewriter). Mary, heartbroken, ends her budding career, and sinks into depression, drinking cooking sherry, as her (dead) mother had done, and her husband leaves her for his own pen-pal. Meanwhile, Max almost choked a homeless man in anger, for throwing away a used cigarette. He realizes that Mary is an imperfect human being, like himself, and sends her a package containing his Noblet figurine collection as a sign of forgiveness. Mary, however, has sunken into despair after her husband’s departure, found some valium and decided to commit suicide. Right when she was about to hang herself, her neighbor alerts her to Max’s package and she gets to read Max’s letter where he tells her about his realization that they are not perfect and expresses his forgiveness, and how much their friendship means to him, and that he hopes their paths will cross one day.

One year later, Mary travels to New York with her infant child to finally visit Max. Entering his apartment, Mary discovers Max on his couch, gazing upward with a smile on his face, having died earlier that morning. Looking around the apartment, Mary is awestruck to find all the letters she had sent to Max over the years, laminated and taped to the ceiling. Realizing Max had been gazing at the letters when he died, and seeing how much he had valued their friendship, Mary cries tears of joy as she sits beside him on the couch.

– back to me: I am touched and moved just from reading Wikipedia’s entry on the movie- this is indeed a must-see movie. So much of the plot reminded me of what we talked about, for example, Max’s feeling that his diagnosis is not a disease that can be cured, that it is part of who he is.. and so much more. I am about to take a walk and then be busy for the day. I will look for the movie tomorrow, in about 24 hours from now.

anita