📷Back of the postcard, photo by Jill Krementz
Twelve years ago today Kurt Vonnegut sat down at his desk where he's written so many luminous verses before and wrote me a letter.
As a student living abroad in Australia I would frequently wander Sydney alone with a sketch pad and a pen - I filled pages and pages of poetry, observations, drawings and musings. I was looking for something...I was looking for myself. In many ways, I still am. It was on one of the early days of my study abroad program that I wandered into an old Australian pub and sat down for a pint. On the old wooden bar was a stack of coasters, the bartender slid one towards me before placing a frosty beer atop. As I sipped the foamy brew, I looked down to see the words "seek the advice of everyone's advice who's worth having and then make the decision yourself" written on the coaster. I immediately starting drafting a letter to Mr. Kurt Vonnegut in my mind. He was the first person I thought about the advice worth having. I drafted the letter over and over in my head and then finally in my notebook before transcribing it in a letter. I introduced myself, my life, my thoughts, my feelings on his work (which had been very influential to me during my formative years) and then I sent the letter into the abyss not knowing if it would ever reach him. I had researched his lawyer, agent and towns which he frequently mentioned in his more autobiographical stories. And then I came across a PO Box in Long Island and something about that address stopped me in my tracks. I envisioned him surrounded by hydrangeas like the photo his wife, Jill Krementz, had taken. I put the letter in the outbound mail and wished it well. A little over a week to the day, I received his reply.
I've read his advice countless times and each time I take something different from it. Sometimes I agree, sometimes I don't. But mostly I just add it to the encyclopedia of my life and refer to it whenever a certain kind of advice is needed. And then I continue to make the decision myself.
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