London

I write because I must. The thoughts tangle up in me and must stroll to stretch their legs. The thoughts are, as always and without reprieve, for you. When I write, I let myself believe you are my friend and are interested in them. I know that you wish that I did not exist for you - that I had never existed. But you cared once, and I write to that person, even if he is dead.  Maybe he is locked up in some corner of your mind and he likes to see my name and hear my voice.

I sometimes share bits of our correspondence with Eve and Christine because they've both met you. They tell me, “He existed. He loved you once. He is gone. He is dead, but he loved you once very much.” They both have such incredible empathy for you. They say such kind things about you still, and that comforts me. I care that you are treated well - even in memory - because you have been through so much, and I don’t want hatred towards to you for the choices you’ve made.  I fight enough dark thoughts of my own, I don’t have it in me to fight their anger as well.

I was in London this week; a hotel in Trafalgar square just across from the National Gallery and the church of St. Martin in the Fields. More than a decade ago, I spent three months in London and saw (and fell in love with) Da Vinci’s Madonna of the Rocks, and ate in the church’s “Café  in the crypt”. This Thursday, I ran in the misting rain, saluted Lord Nelson, jogged past the theaters, and fantasized about the day when I will come back and sit in the audience.  My childhood friend Stacey came to meet us at the hotel. Stacey moved to the UK several months ago so that she could be with Daniel, the Scotsman who took her heart. She had been an actress in New York for fifteen years, taking work as a salesperson and nanny, and working in off-off-Broadway roles. Daniel is a British actor and they eek out an existence together, learning one another, and loving every minute. We met for drinks and she stayed the night with me so we could catch up.

We sat together with Jim in the swanky hotel bar, sipping cocktails and prepping for the meetings the next morning. Jim is my business partner, not my lover. It might be convenient if I was attracted to him. We have common vision, common interests and a shared drive for work. I’ve traveled to the UK five times since August to work with him. We work from early morning until well past midnight, and he reaches inside my brain and fiddles with the gears, finding ways to shift every time it gets fatigued or distracted or dark. Jim’s an impressive man: with years of experience managing human tragedies for the UN. He was responsible for the Rwandan refugee camp during the 1994 genocide and was made a member of the British Order for this work. He would fly over the rivers leading into Goma every morning, counting bodies for the tally so that the UN would finally say “genocide” and intervene. When cholera broke out in the camp, killing 60,000 people in ten days, he shipped in lye to line the graves and bottled water to stop the spread, and bulldozed the contaminated bodies into pits. He had to fight the Hutu disinformation campaign that came over short-wave radio into the camp: they told the refugees that the ration wrist-bands would leave a secret tattoo to track them for life. In response, Jim and his workers wore dozens of the wristbands up their own arms as they worked.

Jim was shot in Bosnia as he ran the refugee camp there. He negotiated through border crossings and was one time drawn into a trap as he negotiated to move food through a contested territory. He was trapped for a day in a cement building with several Serbian men who cooked rats in a pot as they waited for the firefight to stop. Two of the men had been neighbors before the conflict. When the ethnic cleansing began, one man killed the wife and children of the other man. Now, they seemed to be friends and allies. "It is my fault," explained the man with the murdered family. "I should not have married a Croat."

Jim told me this story when I asked him how your thinking could be twisted and converted by the people you work for, turning you into their tool.

He is such a private person, nobody would ever guess that this is his past. It’s taken me months to elicit this information from Jim as we’ve worked together. In return, he walks with me through the Suffolk farmland or along the seaside after I’ve received a detached or cold message from you. He doesn’t ask questions and he distracts me with our current project, directing my pain into productivity.

I admire and respect him, but we’re platonic as brother and sister when I stay at his country home and work late in the night. It’s good for me that way because I can offer brain, but nothing of my heart. The heart is not mine to give. The mind is all he asks, though, and he gives me his mind in return. We will be business partners for decades. We will change the world. He encourages me to protect myself. His tradecraft is learned from playing politics at the highest levels of government. He eats organizations like yours for breakfast. He has advised me on prosecuting your bastard organization, and he will stand beside me as I eviscerate Mac on a global stage.
 
Jim and I met with three of the top law London firms on Thursday. Three firms with very British names. I wore a skintight black dress with heels and the necklace you gave me. By itself the necklace is bittersweet, so I add a heart-shaped quartz stone that was a gift from Stacey years ago. It seems to neutralize the sadness.

After it was over, we had dinner that night with Nick and Fiona in their London home. I’ve fallen in love with Nick and Fiona and their two semi-adult children. Nick is a barrister who cooks me bacon and eggs for breakfast and offers me wine and legal counsel, and Fiona executes the most hilarious running commentary about British politics and the British social scene. If I was ten years younger, I would marry their 18-year-old son, Alex, simply so I could integrate into their fantastic dynamic and enjoy them all the time. It has been such a surprise for me that I can be a part of other families, out of pleasure and not obligation. People have extended families and in-laws. I will never have these things, but I have friends all over the globe who open their homes to me because they are good and I am good, and we seek one another out.

I have a sore throat and fever today. I wish that I did not. I travel to Africa again soon and I hate being sick when I travel. I need to be well so that I can watch for signs of malaria. After this last visit to Senegal, I’ve learned that I can't take the chemical prophylaxis (the side-effects were dangerous), so I have to wait until I’m infected with the damned parasite before I act. I can't know to do this if I already have chills and a fever. It feels pretty bad today - but I remember that you once told me that the worst sickness in the world is the one you're currently experiencing. This makes me laugh now as I feel sorry for myself.

I have sympathy for you, Sjors. I don't understand your decisions, but I don't think you're any happier than I am. Like me, you throw yourself into your work to compensate for the pieces that are missing. Does this give you relief as it gives me? This work consumes me and gives me a future again. I intend to use my energies and the leverage I will gain with my current work to fix things: to pressure companies and governments to behave ethically. Of course, I haven't had success yet! Consider that I haven't had any luck in getting your government to behave ethically - but they haven't felt the pain yet so I still have time. I think you are like me: constantly driving with work and brain so you won't have attention to feel the loss.

I have several questions lingering from past messages to you. I asked you if you ever cheated on me and you did not answer this. I ask you again. I also ask you again to meet with me. You know my reasons for asking this; true friendship requires honesty and commitment. So, I suppose my question remains from my last message to you: will you be my friend? I am your friend and let you into my life. You are welcome. But, in spite of all the rules and restrictions you live under, I want you to be my friend as well. I want you to let me into your life and to be honest with me, whether the picture is good or bad. It goes against all your training, and everything they wish you to do. But I think you should give them the finger and do it anyway.

I've been reading Le Carre's books recently. He is one of my favorite authors and I pace myself with his writings (like good bottles of wine). I particularly like the Smiley series. I just finished "Smiley's People" and I've started reading, "Call for the Dead" about George's recruitment and initial years in the British Secret Service. A passage struck me with particular poignancy: "His emotions in performing this work were mixed and irreconcilable. It intrigued him to evaluate, from a detached position, what he described as "the agent potential of a human being", to devise miniscule tests of character and behavior which could inform him of the qualities of a candidate.  This part of him was bloodless and inhuman. Smiley, in this role, was the international mercenary of his trade: amoral and without motive beyond that of personal gratification. Conversely, it saddened him to witness in himself the gradual death of natural pleasure. Always withdrawn, he now found himself shrinking from the temptations of friendship and human loyalty. He guarded himself warily from spontaneous reaction. By the strength of his intellect, he forced himself to observe humanity with clinical objectivity and because he was neither immortal nor infallible, he hated and feared the falseness of his life."

I wonder, my friend, if this is what you hate and fear. You are, by nature, an intellectual man. Empathy comes to you as a secondary effect after you have been able to logic your way through another person's perspective. But I like the spontaneous Sjors, and it will be sad if you guard yourself warily from spontaneous reaction. They should let you be more than this. It is a false choice they offer you. Do you sense this?

The Promise

In your message to me you expressed the belief that I've broken a promise to you by staying as I have: because I told you that I would leave if it was best for you. You seem to feel angry at me for not following through on this.
 

I have to tell you: I've thought about this promise quite a lot during the last year when I've wanted to be finished with you so that my soul would heal. Sometimes, I try to pretend that I've closed the door on you because I fear the darkness that has sucked me down so many times. I know that it is a risk to have this door open (even a crack). It is always possible that the darkness will swallow me again and I tell myself that it would be best if I could just forget you. But I have this strange difficulty in lying to myself.
 

I ask you now to lend me your dispassionate mind. I appeal to your logic, not your emotions. Please consider the reasoning of my words and perhaps you will understand what has happened, and help to know what to do next.
 

Consider that the problem is the promise itself. Consider that I have not broken my promise to you: I will leave you if it is best for you. Like every other promise I made to you, I meant this one sincerely and I seem to be so bound by it that I can't make it budge. But also consider that the converse of that promise is true as well: if it is not best for you (or harmful to you), I cannot leave you. I think that this is what has happened to me. This is why I cannot leave, in spite of all my attempts. I have never believed that I would be leaving you to happiness or truth. And so I can't leave. I stay for exactly the same reason (and for the same promise) for which you think I should be gone.
 

Do you remember when I tried to leave last October and I couldn't do it? I changed my ticket, then, lost my luggage and left Schiphol on foot, feeling like I'd made a terrible mistake. I stayed in the Netherlands then for the same reason I stay now: because I would break my promise by going away. I physically could not make myself leave.
 

I truly believe that I would damage you if I left. If I leave, then I am agreeing that you have chosen the right path: the path that will make you the happiest and bring you the greatest joy and peace. I would be adding my vote to the hundreds of other votes you have collected: from your friends and your family and your colleagues and your boss who tell you that the life you live now is the right thing to do. But I absolutely, in the depths of my soul, cannot believe this. I believe that you are lying. Some of the lie was deliberately formed by you, and other parts of the lie have become integrated into you. I believe you have lied to me and that you have lied to yourself. I believe that the life you live now is a lie. I believe that you have many incentives to continue living the lie. I believe that it is likely you will live the lie for the rest of your life. And if everyone else in your life believes the lie, that's not my concern. All I'm concerned about is my truth and your truth and the promises I made to you. I believe that you are doing something that is terribly and irrevocably damaging to you. There is nothing I can do to stop it, but I cannot condone it. Please understand: I am not able to condone it.
 

When you wanted me to walk away last October, I think you wanted me to agree with the story you told yourself. I could not. I did not have the emotional wherewithal to fight it logically, but I felt instinctively that it was very wrong and so I stayed, even though I was fragile and unable to fight.
 

For a while, I believed that you lied because you had some external threat hanging over you - because you feared losing your children. When I became strong enough, I did my best to remove this threat so that you would be free to make decisions without the ugly influence of your masters. If I had succeeded, I may have been able to walk away then. But I did not succeed and you seem to have become such a zealot for their cause, I don't think that you will ever be freed. You stepped willingly back into their cage and shut the door behind you.
 

I have no expectation that I will ever see the man I fell in love with. For all intents and purposes, that man is dead and I have grieved him tremendously. I can honestly say: I have no hope. But the promise I made to him is immovable.
 

Let us say (for the sake of argument) that I am wrong in my instinct and my assessment. Let us say that you are living honestly and that you have reconciled all of the fractured parts of your identity. Let us say that you are living in a loving and reciprocal and mutually supportive marriage with a wife who understands and loves you, and that you have integrity in all parts of your life and that you are a whole, complete and healed man. Let us say that you are really and truly happy.
 

If this is the truth of your life, if you are telling and living the truth, then the best possible solution is to give me the peace of letting me see and experience this firsthand. If you are happy and living the life you wanted, then let me see this so that I can be released. Be my friend. Really and truly. Let me into your life. Let me see and know that you are well and release me.
 

Here is the rub, though: you cannot paint a pretty enough picture that I will not see through. You know me. You know this is true. You have tried to give me pretty pictures and lie to me so that I could walk away, but I have not been able to go because I see through the bullshit.

If you are not happy or truthful, then give me the peace of being your friend and ally. Give me the respect of being truthful with me. I cannot leave you, so let me be your friend, rather than your tormentor.

Rota

I went for a run along the ocean this morning. The beach in Rota has fine sand and I took my shoes off to run barefoot in the surf.  It was dark when I began but the sun was rising when I finished, reflecting pink and quicksilver off the water. I waded deep into the ocean then, hiking my shorts up to the underwear-line to keep them dry, but a large wave pummeled me and drenched nearly everything. Already wet, I thought about going in: swimming out to sea. It would be relaxing, I thought. But it is still too tempting for me to swim out and not return.  Even today, the idea tugs at the corners of my mind.
 

I asked god about you. I am not a holy person and my prayers have more than their fair share of profanity. But I calculate that god is more offended by personal dishonesty and hypocrisy and cruelty than my prolific fucks and damns.  It will come as no surprise to you that there were quite a few fucks and damns in my prayer for and about you!

Years ago, in my first time in St. Peter’s in Rome, I found myself in a chapel with obscenely ornate gold seraphim flanking an elaborate altar. I knelt with the penitents and tried to be respectful of their silence. Suddenly, without meaning to, I found myself saying words I had not intended to pray: “I give you the fire of my mind.” The prayer was so fierce and unexpected that I jumped up right away, embarrassed, and walked briskly from the room so that people would not stare. As I think about my passion, my insatiable intellectual curiosity, my drive for truth, and need for justice and compassion in equal measure, I wonder whether god took seriously my words and has stoked this fire even though we’ve never talked about it since and I have so little faith or belief in deity. The thought gives me comfort, though, and makes me feel that my actions and drive could, at some point, have some sort of purpose and resolution. It is important to feel a sense of purpose when all hope for personal happiness has fled. People tell me that I’m a workaholic but I do not attach a negative connotation to this concept. At the very least, it was the fire of my mind that kept me alive when my sorrow would have drowned me in the ocean of Cape Verde that day in August last year and every day since when I feel the hole in my soul and I wish to be finished.

“What is the purpose of this pain?” I asked god. The pain is a constant thing with me, and becomes stronger in the afterglow of a particularly notable professional accomplishment because I cannot share my victory with the man who loved me, and who would be happy for me. Because I have the knowledge that this professional win is the only type of joy I will ever know and it seems so inadequate compared to what I had when I was with you. Then, I felt your soul; I felt truly happy; I thought I would have a lifetime to learn you; I thought we would share our days and nights and help one another become our highest and best selves; I taught myself Dutch so I could talk to your kids and I thought that we would raise children together. “Is there a reason why I haven’t been able to excise this pain from body and soul?” I asked god. “Is the purpose of pain to smooth off the sharp edges?” But then I laughed because that seemed wrong. “I think you like my edges,” I shouted to god and the ocean. “I think you like my sharp edges!”

 Somehow, I felt that this was true. The tougher I become, the more capable and angular and able to fight bullshit and lies, I have the sense that the god I was raised to believe in, the weak and shaming god who wanted blind followers, was the lie all along. When I sense there might be a god, I feel more kinship with the Jesus who kicked down the money-changers stalls in the temple days before his crucifixion.

During this last week, I met with fourteen naval officers from all over the world for ten hours each day. I taught them critical thinking. I taught them research methods. I gave them data; showed them how to conduct qualitative and quantitative analysis. They each conducted a research project and I struggled to make sure that they each understood and could do it on their own: question; hypothesis; study design; data collection; analysis; conclusion; assessment.  I have never been a good instructor but I need them to know how to do this. I’m convinced it’s the only way anything will ever change in Africa. People have to be able to self-examine and check where they are.  This program is my program. My idea. The Command supports it and now I’m executing it. Sent to Spain on my own to execute my own program. In retrospect it was a pretty neat deal. And exciting to have my program underway.

I had the weekend free. I had work to do but I saved it for Sunday and I left Rota on Saturday. I set the GPS and drove to Seville. Sjors, it was wonderful! What a tremendously beautiful city! I can’t honestly tell you all the reasons I was charmed, but it made me ache inside with how wonderful it is. I didn’t have time to see everything – so I picked the Cathedral and saw Columbus’ tomb and the art on the gothic walls. There is an orange grove in the church courtyard, and clever brickwork pavement designed to channel rainwater to the trees. A stone well burbled fresh water and I washed my dusty feet and hands in it.

Afterwards, I went to the bullfighting stadium and learned that the sport had originally been developed to train soldiers to fight unpredictable and dangerous enemies. They fought the bulls on horseback. The matadors were the “assistants” on the ground, much like the modern rodeo clowns (If you haven’t seen a rodeo, I recommend it. It’s quite the cultural experience). When they make the death strike, it is with a sword through the spinal column and cleanly into the heart.  I learned that bullfighters feel that the only noble death is a reciprocal death in the ring. So many fighters are gored and trampled by the bulls. Men will continue bullfighting well into their seventies rather than risk dying in their beds. In a strange way, I feel I understand this. It is not the worst death I can think of.
 

In my wanderings, I met up with some French and British tourists. We had tapas and drinks together and then found a club with authentic Spanish guitar and Flamenco dancing. The dancer was so intense, her face full of passion and pain. I know it was theatrics and not real, but I wonder if every woman has some sense of what it is to feel like this.

 

The Frenchman and the Sea

He drank far too much alcohol.
Sangria, and then a beer. And another. And another. And another. And...
To convince himself that it was socializing and not thirst, he ordered me a drink when he collected his own. 
And the glasses of wine lined up on the table, waiting for me as though they were spare sodas.
There was no way I could drink them all.
I tried to understand him: the train of thought. The ideas. They were jumbled in  his head and in his words. Every time I thought I could address one of these, hold it down and analyze it, it skidded away from me like a cockroach in the light.
"Docotor," he said to me, his eyes bleary and the consonants in the word pronounced independently. "I find you very attractive."
"Thank you," I told him.
But I did not want him. Sjors is still the only person I want. Fantasize about.
But I like Marc. With his crooked nose and his celtic, devil-may-care attitude and his encyclopedic knowledge of American action films. He asked me, "Do you find me attractive?"
"Have you not listened to me?" I ask him. My eyes still sting with the tears that come, even now, unbidden every time I think of Sjors.
"I'm in love with someone else."
He shows me pictures of his three-year-old son in France.
"His mother...tries to erase me," he says. 

Out on the Spanish coast, the waves crash. Full of too much wine, we scramble over the wall and I walk, sand sloshing into my sandals.
"There is a philosopher," he says. "He said that there are men who are dead, men who are alive, and then there are sailors."
I laugh. It is a loud, raucous laugh that seems the match the waves. Maybe he is talking about himself but, to me, he describes Sjors. I know that if I stop laughing long enough, he will take my clothes off there on the beach. I don't want him to.
"I am here," he tells me. "Because my life in France is shit."
I nod. Overhead, the sky is dark with stars. Behind us the city lights from Rota are glowing in the the drunken haze.
"You are here," he tells me. "Because your personal life is shit."

I look in the waves in the dark. I think about another ocean. One year ago. I would have gone out into it. Into the darkness. I would have stopped things then. Ended the pain.

And I wonder: what I have I gained by staying here a little longer?

He wants to come back to the hotel. He wants to order champagne. I order him a taxi.

"Do you find me attractive?" he asks me.

But I have gone beyond attractive long ago. When I decided to stay alive. Something about this has changed me.

He is angry when he gets into the cab. I cannot give him more. I don't have it to give.

Ugly Rich Man

Today, I was backed into a corner and yelled at for 30 minutes by a man who owns tens of millions of dollars and contracts his vessel to the US Navy.

His name is Al. I'd never met him before but, according to the contracting officer I spoke with after the fact, she was surprised that he was so awful - even concerned for his physical health. He'd always been so lovely to her.

Of course he had. Why on earth would he bite the hand that feeds him?

The issue revolves around food. Specifically, the food that is given to Africans during training.

There is a strange and disgusting world view that I frequently encounter: that any problem, large or small, that arises during an engagement in Africa, is a booger that can be wiped off on the "condition" of working in Africa. It's only Africa, afterall. Were you expecting us to bring our A game?

So when African students complain about the quality of food that they're given, people say, "They should be grateful for what we give them."

Because it's Africa and nobody's supposed to notice when you're exploiting them. All I can say is: if an African can't eat the food, then its really inedible.

Never mind that the ship is given a fixed sum of money to feed the students (and can pocket the change when the meals are cheap). Somehow, the African students never manage to get the same food that is fed on the mess-decks: the food that the crew eats.

In July, we had a meeting with the Ship's crew and with the trainers and the coordinating staff: a "Hotwash" to identify issues with the mission. This discrepancy was brought up. The captain violently denied that there was a problem. The instructors starting keeping records. They passed the information to me. It looked something like this:

Day 1: Crew Meals A & B. Student Meal: C  Mismatch? Yes.
Day 2: Crew Meals  D & E. Student Meal: C. Mismatch? Yes.
Day 3: Crew Meals F & G: Student Meal: H. Mismatch? Yes.

and so on... you get the picture.

I passed the information to the appropriate people. I assumed that the "reasonable man" approach would be taken and the behavior would change.

Then this ugly rich man backs me into a corner today, and began an attack that does not stop for nearly 30 minutes. Apparently, the ship's Captain had received an e-mail message this morning with instructions on having "fair meals" between the mess decks and the classrooms.

Al is upset. He wants to know what the issue is. I give him a brief overview of the hotwash. Why hasn't he heard about it until now? He tells me that "any issues should be addressed through  the appropriate channels" (the irony being that he was addressing THIS issue through an inappropriate channel). I believe that the issue had been addressed during the hotwash and I tell Al that his people had been present and were well aware of the concern. I tell him that the minutes of the hotwash and the lessons learned had been shared. I recommend that the appropriate fix is to ensure equality
in the meals.

Then the Captain jumps in and insists that "all the meals are equal and have always been equal". I mention that the instructors had tracked the meals that were served on the mess decks vice the meals served in the classrooms and that this was not true.

At this, the rich man's head nearly pops off his shoulders and goes hissing around the room in a big ball of fire. He accuses me of "opening an investigation", and asks why I am "interrogating his staff" and notes that I had been "very interested in the engine room" (I was dragged along on a ship's tour yesterday and couldn't give a damn about the engine room. I presume he's accusing me of being a spy). I try to diffuse the situation and explain my role on the ship (training the Staff to conduct assessments).

I tell him that I need to get back to my job, but he continues his tirade for several more minutes. It becomes clear to me that, whatever the real issue is, I'm not going to find it out, and that I'm not in a position to fix or diffuse anything.

He will not let me go. He blocks my way. He yells at me until I repeatedly tell him that I will not speak with him further about this and that he would need to talk to my boss. I tell him that he is being inappropriate and ask him to leave me alone.   

I think he expected me to be ignorant or easily manipulated. But I am always armed with more than enough knowledge and I tend to be just pissed off enough to fight back.

Meet me in Prague

Havering,

I try to understand you, what you are thinking and doing. But without success.

Some time ago I discovered that I don't know you as well as I thought. I think this has lead to miscommunication in the past. I also think that this is why my recent attempts to communicate with you were in vain. We sent emails back and forth but I dare not speak of communication.

This email is my attempt to communicate with you.

You wrote me 16 messages, including one not adressed to me but people reading with me.

There are no people reading with me. I can't explain the things that appearantly went wrong with your facebook. I am convinced that it must have been a normal error. Nor have there at any time been people listening in.

From what you write I destilled that you believe we love one another and a third party makes this impossible. You decided to fight the third party.

You must know that it was my wish, personally motivated, to break contact. It was not influenced or laid up by a third party. You wrote about Mac.I assess you try to fight him. Please know that he has got nothing to do with it. I ask you to leave him alone. I know you think I am pursuaded to write this, but I am not. I don't know how to convince you but I ask you to believe me for it is true.

I care about you. It hurts me to see you hurt. I want to communicate with you if that helps you. I offered you my friendship in the past. I offer it again. But it can only work if you want it and stop blaming and fighting others.

I am here as a friend.

Regards, Sjors

Dear Sjors,

I apologize for the delay in responding. I’ve been in the UK again, working with Jim and running in the Suffolk countryside. It has been very beautiful, with a clear sky and warm sun – even at the end of September.

I feel at a loss for what I should write to you so I hesitate. What can I say that I have not already said? How can I communicate with you when you seem not to understand me and when your responses carry those obligatory attempts to paint me as irrational or paranoid? I feel so sad to be confronted by your prioritizations: you make it clear that you will support and protect their lies, even when they harm me. You choose to align yourself with the people whom you once thought that, with me by your side, you could fight.  What do I say to that?

You tell me that you wish to be my friend. If this is a genuine offer, then meet with me. It is clear that we cannot “communicate” via messages. You feel misunderstood by me. If you wish to convince me of the truth of your words, then look me in the eyes and tell me in person that your organization never harmed me.  Tell me that they are not actively looking for ways to harm me.  Tell me to my face that they are not reading your messages and informing your words and influencing your decisions.

You say that you are trying to understand me, what I am thinking and doing. If you truly wish to know, then I will tell you. In person.  I will tell you whatever you want to know.

If we are to be friends, then we must trust one another. I cannot trust you when I believe you are lying to me, and you cannot trust me when you think I will be your downfall.

It should be on neutral ground. Not Italy. Not the Netherlands. You pick the place (in Europe, preferably) and I will meet you. Madrid, Paris, London, Prague. It doesn’t matter to me.

I will be unavailable until the middle of October. After that, plan to take time off and spend two days with me over a weekend during the last two weeks of October. Not two hours. Not a single awful lying meeting that leaves me drained and dark for months. If you want my friendship, then earn my trust and invest in me as you would invest in a friend. If you want my wellbeing, then be a friend. If you are truthful with me, I will be truthful with you. I will cancel meetings on a weekend and give you my attention and we will build a friendship.

If you want to bring someone with you, that would be fine. Bring your brother or your friend or your wife or a colleague. It may be better that way because I will not be a “secret” friend again.  

It’s your choice.

Sincere wishes for your wellbeing,

E