On being in the prisms of possibility: from Thomas, a letter in reply

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profesorbaker says:
February 9, 2011 at 1:18 pm

Hi Elise,

You are here with me today, as I was with you the past day, reading your writing.

Ailsa, you must know, that if I knew you, I would insist on calling you “Elise”, for that is the moment when your writing spoke to me, when your lovely voice first rose from the shadows of print surrounding it, and gave me the possibility of understanding what CCK11 means to me personally, when I first called you, “Elise”.

After reading your writing, I listened to this lovely pianist, playing your song, written centuries ago, and named, for you, “Für Elise”, “For Ailsa”, by Beethoven himself.

Yes, too much optimism, on anyone’s part, is a clear and present danger. On the other hand, a lack of optimism, a failure to believe that you can calm the wind, that you can sustain yourself over water, is also, a clear and present danger.

Only those crazy souls, who dare to dream that a man can fly, only those souls who see life not within the prism of its apparent limitations, but within the prism of its possibility, its potential, its “this-is-something-I-would-like-to-do-ness, and “why hasn’t someone done this before”, those are the ones who push the human race forward, I’ve been told.

Elise, we both agree on one thing, that life is beautiful, although scary at times, and if we strive for the beauty, I’m sure there will be music for us, even if we “be the only ones listening”, to Beethoven himself, playing your song, “Für Elise”…

Oh, Ailsa, your thesis is surely a majestic melody, and your smile, if it be like my smile, must surely last for a while….

My best regards, for my friend, Elise/Ailsa

Thomas