A Knight in Shining Armor

Dear Sir Parker DeBoer,

“Alas, how terrible is wisdom
when it brings no profit to the man that's wise!
This I knew well but had forgotten it,
else I would not have come here.”
― Sophocles, Oedipus Rex

                I find it odd to be writing about a character in one of my novels. I guess this is the first time I have a pen a letter to someone who is not real. All the other letters are written with the idea of someone real in mind, but not this one. This one was crafted to a person I have met in the pages of my imagination, and I feel odd writing it. I guess, if you must know, I am writing this letter because I have too much on my mind. I have too many stories I wish to write or edit. And it just so happens Sir DeBoer is in one those stories which need to be edited.

                I’m writing a letter to calm my mind before bed. I doubted it would work, but I must try. There sits too much on my thoughts, and I’m not sure where to go with them.

                One of those things, no, that is the wrong word, on those people on my mind is where Sir Parker gains his last name. She is a friend from high school, and we had many great adventures during our youth. She is one of the few people from that era I have kept in contact with over the years. Although I would point out, it has been little contact, and we are no longer as close as we once were. It is no fault of hers or mine but of how life has worked out. We live on the opposite sides of the country, and it would be quite hard to remain close friends.

A letter does well to keep people in my life, but a letter does not always equal a deep, meaningful relationship. Most the time a letter is a selfish form of writing. It allows the writer to pour their emotions out on the pages knowing someone will read them. Yes, the writer wishes and longs for someone to write back, but that is the human condition. We all want to be seen and not live in the shadows. Or as Thoreau so elegantly put, “Most men lead lives of quiet desperation and die with their song still inside them.” A fear we all can relate too. Fear, I feel deeply know right now in my life.

What I was trying to say above before my mind side tracks me, is the name of you (Sir Parker DeBoer) is me paying my respect to a friend. Who at the time I knew them help me in ways they did not know, and I can only repay them the best way I know how; with a letter, with a story.

I am very sure she will appear in many other of my tales. Although, I am not sure she will know it. I am not sure she read any of my works, but I should be so wise as to write a real letter to her and send it off … maybe, I’ll be that wise one day.

I met you Sir Parker in the pages of ‘The Coin of Valhalla’ where you carried a cane or a sword, and you fought the Man in the Woods. You hunted the demon with six eyes trying to devour the souls of the warriors in Valhalla. Someday I hope for many other people to meet you as well.

But you are not the one I want to speak about; I wish to speak of the Valkyrie who you live with you, Solace. The wild child with platinum blonde hair and a temper to match the Devil in the church. A sad case when I wrote her story. A heart which has been hardening by time. I speak as if you do not know that but you out of everyone know it best, you live with her after all. I believe, Solace, is trapped in the past.

I believe ‘The Coin of Valhalla’ is a tale of me being a trap in the past. I feel surrounded by the root of my memory. The ghost who roam the tomb of my head and tonight they moan loud. Maybe, that is why I must push all of this out. I want to quiet them for a little while. Solace is the embodiment of that longing.

(Note: I do not know that to be true all the time within the story. Like people, characters change, and sometimes all my characters are doom to the fate of their past.)

There was a conversation I had with Solace that did not make it into the book but made into another book with someone’s else voice, but I know it came from her. I also know you were there when she spoke to me about the topic at hand. She told me her views on ‘love’ or as the old poets of time long forgotten would have said, “romantic love.” For as we, Sir, know not all love is the same. Not all form of love is equal. Love, the word anyways, is a catch-all word. When you ask people to go to the root of the word they almost get lost the idea of it, not sure where to go.

And our view of “romantic love,” has been twisted and changed over time so much I’m not sure we know what is anymore. I find myself laughing when I speak to someone who believes gender is a social constructed and yet, in the next breath they speak of their view of love as absolute truth. Or they will agree that this idea we have of “romantic love,” is nothing more than a social constructed but will gladly join in with it as if nothing is wrong.

Now, I’m not saying agree with them or Solace. I am unsure where I stand with the views “romantic love.” I do wish to believe in it. I wish so very much to think it is real.

Solace spoke of how we (mortals) have it all very wrong. Our love has been twisted and bears thorns that we no longer know what it is. We see love as the answer and yet, are never really to pay the price for it. Or we find love in the body thinking that’s it. The more people we have in our beds or, the more joy we gain from lust, the greater the love.

She told me of the worst mistake we make with love, and that is we accept everything about someone. At first, I didn’t understand what she meant, but it only took some time for me to see it. We can’t point out or say anything about the wrongs someone does. The action they take in the name of love can never be wrong. How have we come so blind not to see how many deaths and much pain has been causing by saying nothing because the action is in the name of ‘love’?

I shudder to think how much farther we must go this road before we change our ways.

I asked her, “What about Divine love? What about God’s love?”

She smirked, and outside of seeing her beat someone’s head, she never smirks. She told me, that God’s love the perfect love. The love we can never understand because we have corrupted it. The Father’s love is the only real love in the world. Those are the words she spoke to me, and I would be a liar to tell you I didn’t believe them for a while, but I did.

I desperately thought mortal love was a joke. The events of my life have shown to me that to be very true, but I was bitter and hurt and sore like Solace was. I agree with her that we have a twist, true love or Divine love because we twist everything God has given us. We are sinful in our nature. But God has once again given us something great in the world. He has shown what kind of love we should try for. He told us the practices to make love work the best way we can, here, in this world. Another word, we can’t reach Heaven here, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try.

I believe that is the best place to end my letter. If I keep writing about what love is or mean or how to feel it, you would be reading a book by the end of the night. I know, my views of love come from my family, their faith in each other and most of all the Lord. I also know I have twisted it in so many ways that I bear scars from it and to my ever shame other people bear those scars too.

A Writer