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Mon Xavier,
It feels like our correspondence has been resigned to letters and texts these days- A fact which I can only apologize for. Though there may have been many hurdles which even I couldn’t surpass- global crises which care not for the ache of missing a friend who feels less like an addition and more like an integral part of the self- it still feels like the onus falls on me to bridge that gap; To reach a hand from Turkey to France, from one part of Paris to another, an offering of connection that has never once been broken… At the very least, not on my side. I hope you know that, Xavier. That for all my distance, you have never once left my mind, a constant companion regardless of time or place. Ink in my body, words in my ear, silhouette against so many of my memories. You have traveled with me, in my pocket, and in my heart, regardless of the many miles between myself and home. And, is it not true that I have always found my way right back to your doorstep?
I assure you, Xavier, not a drop of alcohol has touched my lips- I say this with a clear head and clearer heart- I missed you with an entirety not quite translatable. But, regardless, I will try my best to convey the weight of such missing.
Excavating my body and mind, planting stakes like a conglomerate of city lights floating just above the horizon line, I’ve found myself in front of what I imagined to be a painful truth. At least back then, as you were about to finish another voyage around our sun, opening every curtain with such vigor you could’ve ended up draped ghostly… I was already on that incomprehensible path, because you’re not supposed to run in boots ! With chapped lips and a furrow to my brow in northern Paris, I was seeking the unthinkable. I called it ‘novelty’, to much chagrin (I could see it in your eyes. I’m sorry.). Indeed, I sounded insane, I was. Stuttering pixels and dusty hard drives, then a compressed amalgamate of brains busied over a few weeks to bring forth my vision. It was about completing a cycle of mysteriously inspired intention, give a voice to histories and memorabilia, stitching the bridges and planting stakes. But you don’t know, Xavier, what you find putting splinters in each finger. You would find them to be shards in fact, scintillating in the July sun, reflecting the image of the person dearest to me, the one standing confused with both feet on my pulmonary artery. It doesn’t crush me, not at all. It never will but I will tell you something that is true :
I thought it would.
And though I already deemed it unfit to run it boots, it seems, like always, I am not one to subscribe to any rules. You could follow the clack of my heels through the last year, if you needed to- Listening for the sound of cork on cobblestone. But it won’t be necessary; save your hearing for the blackbirds, Xavier. I’ll keep a grip on your hand that ensures you won’t get lost… A grip I feel broke down over poor internet connection, and connections outwith our own.
It feels selfish in a way- To come to you a year later with things I thought then, so distracted by the rigor of life that I forgot to offer sweetness to those closest to me. I make no excuses, but I can understand myself in turn- Isolation can lead to the most insular of thoughts, Xavier. I can only ask for your forgiveness, and offer lost words in an attempt to soothe any ache I may have caused- I miss you, I love you, and most importantly, that long hair suits you… You promise you won’t cut it?
It’s unfortunate that these words have to come many months later- Many barbers trips later too. But you’ve always understood my appreciation for older things, as you have always appreciated my understanding of vintage wine. These thoughts have matured, their flavour as I mouth their corresponding words to myself, pen in hand, nothing short of rich, deep, and fine. Gourmand. I find myself overjoyed by the fact that I can experience them now, not letting their bottles grow dusty in some cellar, waiting for the perfect moment to uncork them. At once, I am reminded that I am not only a hedonist, but of the simple fact that your presence is a luxury that I can’t help but revel in every time I am reminded of it. A scent that never grows cloying, a taste that never grows dull, familiarity that is simultaneously exciting and comforting. I can only hope that you continue to fill my glass.
I have grown extremely fond of your subtle theatrics, over the years. But what I’ve been missing the most is when you would drop it. It was necessary to complete my suggestions to people with a familiar face; It feels too good to not have you do it too, for once. A triad of months exactly today that I get to find new reasons to adore it backstage. Your kindest smiles and the daily suggestion by Chef de Rosnay, how you’ll serve me wine the way you would water because it is just me. None of my respect needs to be given to grapes, I estimate you highly in your mundanity. You never need to pretend with me, because I don’t want to either- I really don’t. And I do want to push it further even, let me suggest this : I need you, and you do too, to not pretend. Because what you are Xavier, excuse the formulation, is a beautiful man.
I opened myself wide, pinned my body down with wood. Who is to open the doll inside the doll now ? Warmth in your hair of charcoal, clutching at the one thing that does really matter, hands over your heart, you never make anyone go in there, which is okay- a monolith firmly standing, you carry on you the sun of July, two claws to grip at your desires. It is beautiful yes, but I hope you realize many people think the same. Exhaustion is your style, which is why selfishness I consider grace, in some ways. We could just enjoy a moment of life the best we could despite my constraints, and well, haven’t we been doing that already ? Three months down to the day. Each one a new lecture on how to let go, of convention and stress. Do you like it like this ? I do, and I want to imagine you too, when you lay on the couch, legs forbidding me to join you. Laziness without a timer… And you’ve asked me many times, but really, I don’t laugh to mock you. But because you seem from another time, before the grapes became wine, before what happens next, and exactly not what I showed in my artistic efforts. I think this one anachronism can stay between us, don’t you think ? I know we really shouldn’t hold onto an idea of beauty with the other, but I can’t help it. Maybe it’s that to love someone’s presence that much ?
And just as the sun of your month warms you, from the tip of your nose to the jut of your ankle, which I can almost guarantee will be resting against your knee as you read this, I feel myself warmed in turn. Just through your presence, just through my love of it and its beauty, my soul stretches out, rolling its back and purring. Maybe it’s unreasonable, to be jealous of my own cat- But the barrier of your legs on the couch isn’t one to her. She just climbs up and curls, as tight as a knot, in the hollow of your chest. In seeing that, I think I can feel something similar- Even with hair unwashed, and trousers so holey the Pope himself wants them, you’re like a diamond, sunlight caught in the facets of your face. It blows my mind, a little, to see you almost discarded, casual in your apartment like you don’t look the way you do, like you aren’t the way you are. Gracious, gorgeous, giant in presence. You fill up every space you’re placed into, Xavier- Stretched out on the sofa, your clothes strewn around your bedroom in a mosaic of you, the scent of your perfume caught in the grout between the bathroom tiles. Alice in Wonderland, a shoulder against a ceiling and one eye peeking out from a far too small keyhole- Your presence pins me to walls at times, in the best way. I’d hang like a painting in a spare room if it meant I could observe you from my designated place, daring to leave a shadow where your light bleached the space around me.
But, I am fortunate- Knighted with blessings. No longer squirreled away in a spare room- If I ever was. I think fondly of times of the past, and often, even when we’re shoulder to shoulder- Two rooms and a shared bed, the memory comes to me often. It seems that we were never anything to be separated, and if I were to go so far, to be halved. A technique to split an apple is only impressive if you want two halves- And in this case, I’d rather have the whole thing. Is it greed ? Selfishness ? Maybe. Probably. But please, Xavier- Let me be greedy today. It may be your birthday, but I’ve invited you alone to lunch, a little gift I grant myself after 90 days of the same… I cannot highlight my need to be close to you any more. You wear me like a shadow, and still I need.
I don’t appreciate all of my decisions individually. It is silly but it also is what it is, I have pride and then I have regrets, or frustrations. Let me tell you now : for each time I extended the thread between us on the world map, I want to put my feet in socks and stay very still with you. I do not let those frustrations stop me, rip me, rip us. Not anymore, because you know what- The weight of all of everything is only lessened by being by your side, simply. Why would I sing ferociously, pitchforks and axes scattered across an army behind me, when true freedom, relief and peace reside in this perfect familiarity. So then I think of an even older past, of a little something I’ve probably never said much, because we were too busy :
“Freedom with you was and is much more desirable than freedom alone.”
Foolish of me then to try to see what it would’ve been like, if I didn’t decide I’d rather dedicate years of my life doing something we’ve both never done before than continue this solitary yet profitable endeavor I had going on for myself… I would choose to do the same, every time. Without a label, without music, I would’ve learned to mix cocktails with you. It was never about the ‘what’, you know.
Yes, I’ll take a leap of faith, I’ll assume that you do know. You’re a smart one Xavier, and most of all there’s a place right there in your brain which purpose is to make sense of me. I know that because you’ve told me before. And if you can’t remember, well. I do. It means the version of the story is ours, and always needs to be, I know that clear as day now. When I go, your hurt is half of what we’ll remember. When you smile, I let myself be convinced of the beauty of the sight. Press on ivory keys and I’ll feel the way they bounce back on your fingertips ? What you brought me is more than I could ever list, emotion and sensation braided tightly, brown meeting black like the outfit I’m surely wearing today. See ?
Of course you see. And if you see me, find my eye looking right back at you, Though I won’t tap with a finger on my dark circles this time. Find me land it on my forehead then yours instead, then tell you what I think of it :
Can we go back home?
Our socks are waiting, anxious at the door, listening for the sounds of shoes on parquet and a key turning in a lock. And I’ll say this, and you’ll smile in the way you do, the kiss of the fingerprints against your forehead still a lingering sliver of warmth.
For all I say, Xavier, for how embedded and deeply these words are sown into the dirt of my being, there is no desperation here- I would think an expression like this would be furious, a clawing, scrabbling thing, fighting to be understood. But it’s just not- Ripples on a lake, callused fingertips brushing the valley of a brow. The words come as easy as song to a bird, and the way my pen flies, coming to roost on accented word and tender expression, there is the innate knowledge that not one syllable will be misconstrued by its recipient.
And it’s in that, the intrinsic understanding we share, that allows for us to connect as evenly as we do- Separated at birth, reunited for revenge, two halves of apple from two different fruits, two different families, somehow, lining up miraculously. It feels like fate, and though you are the one to sort through tarot decks and wipe the dust off of crystal balls, I find myself just as enraptured by these beliefs. True connection, true understanding, that I’ve been able to find nowhere else- What else can it be, other than the universe’s carefully laid plans, sextant leading the bull to the ocean, crustaceans at their feet.
People call you stubborn, hardheaded, and I am inclined to agree, on some level. You want what you want, and want it for the best. But truly, in reality, the bull-headed one is me. You’re just more overt in your displeasure. I was led to you by fate’s gentle proddings, and it could have not made me drink for all the world, no amount of tugging at my lead or threats or promises getting me to bow my head. But meeting you, seeing you… Ah, I could bear to duck down, just a little, even if the liquid was then sprayed against the poor person standing next to us.
I’ve been able to see you everywhere since then, and it made me reflect sometimes, on the inherent disinterested generosity of this cosmic nudge. Looking at you fuss over a navy tie over a wrinkled shirt on the morning of your brother’s wedding, or talk to me about type metal somewhere at the outskirts of time on a hardwood floor, slurring your words and complaining that using your jacket as a pillow “isn’t a life”. Or even seeing you beam with pride at your collection of Japanese knives, enthusiastic like a slightly worrying child, before skinning a rabbit in cold blood before my eyes. Imbued with passion, determination and a certain kind of tenderness, a hypersensitivity I’d give my life to protect, what you showed me most wasn’t any of that. In fact, it was tolerance, kindness.
Your greatest quality by far, shortbread cookies in the fruit bowl and tupperwares of frozen tomato sauce in the fridge. For Charlotte, for Thibaut, for the guy you’ve had a pleasant conversation with a week ago or the neighbor’s kids. For our labelmates, even the ones we barely see, for our distributors and even complete strangers. Unrelenting work you’d hate to hear labeled as “sacrifice”, because it never is. Their smile and relief become yours, empathy coursing in the streamlined red of your veins. And it’s been decades like this, honing your skills with the patience of a mother. Persuaded it’ll mean something, in the long run.
This is beautiful.
It makes me understand a bit better, why you, why at that particular moment. Just like everything in our lives, it came at the right time, with clockwork precision. Is it you, letting yourself believe, or the universe taking a liking at you ? And you’re right, it does mean something. Because I find myself stubbornly making the case in my head for the latter, knowing perfectly well that’s not how it works. That it’s not even how you explained it to me, all those years ago. “We just need to listen”. I listen carefully, Xavier. Listen to you, every time, refuse to move forward without your approval, without spotting the upward curve at the corner of your mouth, the easiness in your posture. I listen, and I look, hence my pretension to understand now… And the conclusion I derive from those two decades spent by your side is as follows :
Because it couldn’t be anyone else.
Maybe it seems flippant, blasé, but it’s true. As pure a truth as I can excavate from the mines of life. No one, no one at all, nothing compares to you.
I feel more fortunate than Prince, than Sinéad, for I am not lamenting a love lost, but rather awestruck by a love that persists. Your kindness, as expressed above, your loyalty, your romantic inclinations towards poetry, and nature, and art, all things that have developed like a shaken polaroid in a dark room, and that leave me endlessly charmed. Smitten. With our proximity, I’m grateful to be able to observe these qualities from the front row.
When we first met, I was awestruck by you, not just in relation to me, but as a whole person, even at such a tender, tenuous age. As we’ve grown older, wiser, and greyer, you have continued to surpass yourself, thickening rings around the trunk of a fig tree. Maybe it’s youthful foolishness, to think of us as indestructible and all-knowing, and middle-aged assuredness to know that this is not the case. In fact, I relish in this fact- To know that every year I’ll see you become even more of the person you want to be, to see you happier, more comfortable, more yourself… Though it’s your birthday, it seems that I receive a gift, too.
This year, once again firmly cemented by your side through IRIS keyrings and split electricity bills, I am eager to see what this new year brings to you. I can only hope that it’s everything you want, you desire- That by the time you’re putting on your coat for next year’s lunch you have no regrets, no hang-ups, no ‘what if’s. Only a warm feeling of confidence, comfort in what you’ve managed to carve out for yourself as the Earth yet again maps its lazy path around the sun.
Let’s watch that journey from afar, sequestered in a spaceship just for us- The rolling arc of the world caressed by the light of the universe. I’ve been reading Le Monde d'Edena again, but you know that- It’s been your copy I’ve been thumbing through, after all. A spaceship like a hamsterball, rolling away from a world of work to a sweet oasis of lush colour and romance… It all sounds so familiar.
I’ll be there, like Stel, you know ? An endless pursuit, from which nothing can divert me. Even with my skull pried open, metal sinking in the grey matter, rewired to fall into eternal slumber. My heart, the organ to which I could perfectly imagine the fingers glide to from up there, will always beat to your pace, deciding of the air flow with a precise dance. I’ll always allow you there, always marvel at your beauty from my angle, supine and smiling at the person who means more than the universe to me.
If you stumble, I’ll always be there to catch you with my arms. If you doubt, let this letter be the reminder of what a man like me thinks about you. Xavier, I love every part of you. You’ve struggled so much in the past, lost and confused as to what your place in this world was. I hope you’ve found it now.
My lungs coughing petals, my hands sharpening the foil of combat, an elastic band on my wrist to tie the hair away from your face… This armor I’ve worn… It was for you. One could knock on the metal, ignoring the finely cut out door on the plate right over my heart, the ornate lock with a fresco of mythologies. Many times you’ve taken the edge of your own weapon, raising my resting chin as I was already laid down, submitted. Your kindness and encouragement to get back on my feet became my courage, my unending resolution to do right by you. Because you’re the only one I’d let approach me like this.
I am and always will be your partner, if you allow me to be; the hand in a glove with padding like clouds. The palm of the knight extended to you so the arrows can hurt themselves on hardened steel, ricocheting from my back as you find your balance again. For this new year of your life, and all the others, I don’t want you to hurt again. Instead, to blossom like the garden in my insides, so the light of July can attest to your relaxation, happiness and beauty with each spin, a cosmic gift for all the love you bring to everyone around you. Highlight your inner radiance, a man so vibrant and generous luck could never explain how I’ve found myself in his way.
How would you even describe such a feeling ?
Unconditional respect, endless patience… I would call it nothing but love, but even that doesn’t seem worthy to describe what we have. Can four letters encapsulate twenty years, and a relationship we’ve not replicated with another person ? Not seen replicated between two other people ?
Every artist likes to think that they’ve spearheaded a movement, tapped into something unthought of, a secret to the world. But I think we really have. Our practice is one thing, repetitive comparisons and questions notwithstanding, but the connection we have managed to forge between us, a headfirst jump into forever, is in a league of its own.
From the moment we met, until now, it has always been you.
I can see you in my mind’s eye, the strands of your hair falling into your eyes as you lean down to read these last few words- The way your glasses catch the light of the afternoon sun, your long fingers gentle as to not crease the pages. This moment it has already happened, a projection against the inner walls of my skull, and yet I am eager to see it play out in real time too; the slight smile on your face as you look up at me.
I know you, Xavier, like I know myself; I am excited to keep knowing you. Another year more, to add to the two decades already accumulated. My favourite collection by far, along with every word you’ve ever said to me, and every time you’ve looked my way.
Hoarder, perhaps. But my heart will never run out of shelf space.
Happy birthday, my Xavier. May this year hold you strong in its warm embrace, and offer you everything you could ever want. Just know that you have me already.
All my love,
Your Gaspard.