Dear Holden,

Hey! What’s up? I hope everything is going ok for you over there in California. I just got a new cd burner and I made you a mix to liven your mood. Personally, I don’t know why you’re in that “rest home” in the first place. I don’t think you’re “insane” like the first song “Insane in the Brain” by Cypress Hill on the mix says, just depressed. There were a few times that you scared me for a minute though because you were talking about suicide. Like after you got beat up by Maurice because you wouldn’t give him the five extra dollars. “Chief, you’re gonna force me inna roughin’ ya up a little bit. I don’t wanna do it, but that’s the way it looks. You owe us five bucks ,”(102) Maurice said to you, and that’s exactly what you got, a “roughin’ up.” So remember you were all depressed and everything and then you thought to yourself “What I really felt like, though, was committing suicide. I felt like jumping out the window.”(104) Luckily you didn’t though because you said, “I didn’t want a bunch of stupid rubbernecks looking at me when I was all gory.”(104) The other time that you worried me because you were thinking about death was when you were in Central Park after getting drunk in the bar. You started thinking to yourself, “how old Phoebe would feel if I got pneumonia and died.”(156) I’m glad you got out of that park before you really did catch pneumonia and I’m especially glad you didn’t jump out of the window because a lot of people, especially Phoebe, your little sister, would have missed you.

That’s what the second song on the mix, “Waste” by Staind, talks about. One of the lines in the song is “I’ve had doubts, I have failed, I’ve had messed up, I’ve had plans, doesn’t mean I should take my life with my own hands but these words they can’t replace the life you waste.” A lot of people feel sad and depressed like you did, but suicide isn’t the answer. You’re throwing away your own life and whatever future you might have had because better things come in the future. You said yourself at the end of the book that you think you’re going to start applying yourself in school. “I think I am, but how do I know,”(213) you said. Although you sound a little uncertain, for the most part that is a positive statement.

Jimmy Eat World’s “Middle” is another song that has the central theme that good things will come. The main chorus line is “Everything will be just fine, everything will be alright.” So once again, I’m happy that you didn’t let your depression overcome you and actually give in to those suicidal notions because that’s not the answer. I just want you to know that I don’t think you’re crazy or “insane in the brain.” You are depressed though, so if that rest home is the best place where you can be without hurting yourself, then I guess it’s not so bad that you’re staying there.

Something else I wanted to talk to you about is how you feel about Jane. To illustrate those feelings I chose the song “Everything” by Lifehouse. Basically the song talks about how strongly the singer feels for a girl. The main line is “You’re all I want, you’re all I need, you’re everything.” I think that based on your actions and what you say this is how you feel for Jane. When you got into that fight with Stradlater after you had written the essay about Allie’s mitt, it wasn’t about the mitt, it was over the fact that he had gone on a date with Jane. You were so worried about what had happened on the date. “What’d you do? Give her the time in Ed Banky’s goddam car,”(43) you said while your “voice was shaking something awful.”(43) Then you “tried to sock him”(43) and started yelling. “I told him I thought he could give the time to anybody he felt like. I told him he didn’t care if a girl kept all her kings in the back row or not, and the reason he didn’t care was because he was a goddam stupid moron,”(44) you screamed at Stradlater. The reason you cared so much about what happened with Stradlater and Jane was because you feel for Jane. The fact that you noticed that Jane keeps all of her kings in the back row is says a lot. You notice the little things that she does, meaning you feel stronger about her then you’ve made it seem. Also, you always wanted to call her when you were feeling depressed and wanted someone to talk to. For example the time you were feeling lonely in the hotel in New York. You were watching the people in the window squirting water at each other and then, “started toying with the idea…of giving old Jane a buzz.”(63) Also, you thought about her a lot, like when you were leaving the Lavender Room. “All of a sudden, on my way out to the lobby, I got old Jane Gallagher on the brain again. I got her on, and I couldn’t get her off,”(76) you said. So you think about her a lot and you obviously care about her. One other thing that proves how much you care about her is the fact that you told how “She was the only one, outside my family, that I ever showed Allie’s baseball mitt to, with all the poems written on it.”(77) That’s obviously a very important object to you, and the fact that you shared it with her demonstrates your feelings about her. Overall she sounds like a good person who you like a lot, and I think you should remain friends with her.

Even though you care about Jane a lot, you like all women in general. The next song on the mix is about that. It’s called “Girls” by the Beastie Boys, and is just a fun song about how much the singer likes girls. I thought you would like it because you mention numerous times how you love women. When you were in the hotel you thought to yourself “I’m the biggest sex maniac you ever saw.”(62) Also, when you were on the train and you saw Mrs. Morrow. You started saying, “Women kill me. They really do.”(54) Given you’re feeling about women, I thought you might enjoy this funny, upbeat song.

The next song on the mix is “Nowhere Fast” by Incubus. I think this applies to you because truthfully you currently aren’t going anywhere in life right now. Although that sounds harsh, it’s true. One of the lines in the song is “it seems as though I’m going nowhere really fast.” That’s true for you because you’ve flunked out of school a bunch of times, and that really isn’t going to get you very far in life. I agree with the advice that Mr. Antolini gave you. He told you “once you have a fair idea where you want to go, your first move will be to apply yourself in school.”(189) He also said that an education will, “begin to give you an idea of what size mind you have. What it’ll fit and, maybe, what it won’t. After awhile you’ll have an idea of thoughts your particular size mind should be wearing. For one thing, it may save you an extraordinary amount of time trying on ideas that don’t suit you, aren’t becoming to you.”(190) That particular piece of advice is another point addressed in the song. The line is, “Will I ever get to where I'm going? If I do will I know when I’m there? If the wind blew me in the right direction would I even care? I would.” I think that goes along with what he said because even though you might not know what you want to do now, as soon as you educate yourself and figure out what interests you, you’ll be able to figure out what your place in the world is.

Speaking of the world, it’s not such a bad place and neither are the people in it. The next two songs, “Duck and Run” by 3 Doors Down and “The Warmth” by Incubus, are two songs that address this fact. You seem to find fault with almost everyone you meet. Sally Hayes gave you a “royal pain in the ass,”(133) Stradlater was “madly in love with himself,”(27) and Ackley was an annoying guy who would “pick up anything.”(22) Those are just a few examples. I think that you should take some advice from the songs. The chorus of “The Warmth” is “So don’t let the world bring you down. Not everyone here is that messed up and cold. Remember why you came and while you’re alive, experience the warmth before you grow old.” The chorus of “Duck and Run” is “This world can turn me down but I won’t turn away. And I won’t duck and run because I’m not built that way.” Basically those two songs are saying that even though the world and the people in it might seem bad at times; don’t let it bother you because there are plenty of good people to meet and positive things for you to experience. I think that you should apply that to your own life and not judge people so quickly.

Another thing I wanted to point out is that you have a communication problem. That’s what the next song, Tool’s “Schism,” is about. It tells the story of two people whose relationship suffered because they couldn’t communicate. You lie a lot, which doesn’t show good communication skills. You lied to Mrs. Morrow on the train about your name, why you were bleeding, and her son Ernest. You were “shooting the crap”(55) as you put it, but it’s still lying. You also lied to Marty, one of the girls you danced with in the Lavender Room. “I told her I just saw Gary Cooper, the movie star, on the other side of the floor,” you lied to her because you thought it was amusing. Also, your reaction to Allie’s death demonstrates your lack of communication skills. While you were writing the essay about Allie’s mitt you said, “I slept in the garage the night he died, and I broke all the goddam windows with my fist, just for the hell of it.”(39) Instead of communication your feelings of hurt and anger you physically punched something.

The next song on the mix “Change” by Staind, is another song whose central theme is the inability to communicate. One of the lines is “Keep it all down bottle inside, it breaks me. To torment again and torture me like it used to.” That’s exactly what you did after Allie’s death, bottled up your emotions, and it’s still effecting you now. Although you did write down this whole story for others to read, at the end you say, “I’m sorry I told so many people about it,”(214) and “Don’t ever tell anybody anything.”(214) It seems like you made an attempt to communicate to people, but at the end you contradict yourself by saying how you wish you hadn’t. I think you’re on the road to change but still have a long way to go.
The next song also goes along with change. It’s called “Change,” by Blind Melon, and I think it could be inspirational for you to change some things in your life such as your performance in school. Once again, I agree with what Mr. Antolini said about how if you don’t change soon you might end up in even more trouble then you got into this time. He said, “I have a feeling that you’re riding for some kind of a terrible, terrible fall.”(186) I think he might be right too. This time you ended up in a “rest home” in California, but who’s to say where you’ll be in the future. You could get yourself into some serious trouble with all your drinking and wandering around the city. Also, your problems might escalate, and you might fall deeper into depression until you aren’t the same person anymore. That’s what the last song “Crawling,” by Linkin Park, is about. “These wounds they will not heal…I can’t seem to find myself again,” is one of the lines in the song. I think that if you don’t eventually talk out your problems and sort out all of your feelings you might become someone you don’t want to be.

Well overall I hope you’re doing well and that you like the cd. Write back because I want to hear from you, and we should see each other when you’re back in New York. Once again, hope everything’s going ok!

Your Friend,

Shana