Today is the last day of my 30-day letter project. I have not yet written the last letter, but I've had it in mind for awhile. As with most endings, it feels bittersweet. I'll be glad not to have that moment, late in the evening, when I'm drinking a cup of tea on the couch after 12 hours of work only to suddenly realize OH CRAP MY LETTER. But I'll miss it too, the feeling of driving toward something, the feeling of satisfaction at having completed yet another letter, yet another envelope, yet another day.
Did the exercise meet my expectations? I can say it didn't end up being anything like what I was picturing. I imagined writing wildly about anything at all, with little heed to the addressee, and then slapping that sheet of inked paper into an envelope and calling it a letter. Only once or twice did I do that, and even then it was not what I expected. What the project turned into was exactly as it sounds: thirty days of letters, letters which involved "how are you?" and "here is what I've been up to." I wrote to at least 13 different people, many of them more than once. At least three of them are people I have never had that sort of conversation with; two of them are people I haven't seen in ages; two of them are people I've never met in real life. Some of the letters were written with no intention of being sent, and remain collected in an envelope that will never hit a mailbox.
I regret not keeping track of who got what for each day of the project, and I regret not soliciting writing prompts from those who requested letters. Occasionally I got requests anyway, and did not always follow them. That's OK. I wrote to everyone who had requested a letter before April 1. Those who requested them once I was mid-project will have to get a 'normal' letter from me instead. That's OK, too. Letters written outside of April will probably be more interesting and less exhausted by the process.
In thirty days, there were three days in which I did not write letters: one of those days was Easter, when I was driving on dirt roads in Utah; one of them was a day I worked late and then went out with friends; one of them was two days ago, when I worked all day and then came home with the mother of all migraines. Giving myself space to be sick, to be with friends, and to be completely in the place my body inhabited all seemed like very strong reasons to let the project go for a moment. In all three instances I made up the letter on a subsequent day.
Out of all those which were sent, I copied and kept only two of them, both of them letters I knew I would want to refer back to later, if only to reassure myself. Part of the intention of the project was to let that writing go. In my opinion, that's the compelling thing about letters: you write something that may or may not be good, and you send it into the world and never see it again.
Was it worth it? I've sat down to write nearly every day in April. I look at my days now in terms of what I'd like to write about, what will make a good story. This is the way I used to see the world every day, back in college when something would seize me so emphatically that I would pause in the midst of walking from one class to another so that I could jot it down. The mindset itself--that writing is not scary, often mundane, hard, and satisfying--is what I set out for, though I didn't know it. So yes, I got what I wanted: the return of the writer's mind.
Some letters in return, though, dear readers, wouldn't hurt.
I went to my grandmother, your great-great-grandmother, and asked her to write a letter. She was my mother's mother. Your father's mother's mother's mother. I hardly knew her. I didn't have any interest in knowing her. I have no need for the past, I thought, like a child. I did not consider that the past might have a need for me.
What kind of letter? my grandmother asked.
I told her to write whatever she wanted to write.
You want a letter from me? she asked.
I told her yes.
Oh, God bless you, she said.
The letter she gave me was sixty-seven pages long. It was the story of her life. She made my request into her own. Listen to me. I learned so much. She sang in her youth. She had been to America as a girl. I never knew that. She had fallen in love so many times that she began to suspect she was not falling in love at all, but doing something much more ordinary. I learned that she never learned to swim, and for that reason she always loved rivers and lakes. She asked her father, my great-grandfather, your great-great-great-grandfather, to buy her a dove. Instead he bought her a silk scarf. So she thought of the scarf as a dove. She even convinced herself that it contained flight, but did not fly, because it did not want to show anyone what it really was. That was how much she loved her father.
The letter was destroyed, but its final paragraph is inside of me.
She wrote, I wish I could be a girl again, with the chance to live my life again. I have suffered so much more than I needed to. And the joys I have felt have not always been joyous. I could have lived differently. When I was your age, my grandfather bought me a ruby bracelet. It was too big for me and would slide up and down my arm. It was almost a necklace. He later told me that he had asked the jeweler to make it that way. Its size was supposed to be a symbol of his love. More rubies, more love. But I could not wear it comfortably. I could not wear it at all. So here is the point of everything I have been trying to say. If I were to give a bracelet to you, now, I would measure your wrist twice.
With love,
Your grandmother
from Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, Jonathan Safran Foer
April 30, 2009
April 29, 2009
april 29
age 24: I ran the Fayetteville 10K race with a sign pinned to my back that read "Today is my birthday!" People who passed me wished me a good day or asked me how old I was. All my friends were out of town, at least for the morning; Katie came back later and took me to Sylvan Beach, the old amusement park in Canastota where you could ride dark house rides and play old midway games like Fascination. And we took a photobooth photo which still hangs on my office wall.
age 5: I received my first bike: pink frame, white tires, white streamers erupting from the handlebars. I called it Pink Lightning. In a photo taken that day I am beaming as I ride it through the hallway of our Baltimore rowhome. A year later I learned to ride without training wheels in the cul-de-sac of the trailer park where we briefly lived. (Yes, really). Who can forget that moment when the wobbles suddenly, like magic, turn to balance? A moment of triumph that we get just once in our lives, that we never unlearn.
age 25: on a trip to Buffalo to visit my old-fashioned pen-pal (who turned boyfriend that weekend); on my birthday we sat on the pier overlooking Lake Ontario and ate hot dogs and ice cream. Afterwards we hiked through the woods to eternal flame falls, though he kept the flame itself a surprise. I thought we were just on a nice hike. it was a sweet, simple day.
30 days until my birthday. I have my free ticket to Disneyland, and a plane ticket, and plans to see my sister, along with Cristina at her home in Santa Barbara. And MICKEY MOUSE, of course. I plan on eating popsicles for breakfast. And wearing a crown all day.
age 5: I received my first bike: pink frame, white tires, white streamers erupting from the handlebars. I called it Pink Lightning. In a photo taken that day I am beaming as I ride it through the hallway of our Baltimore rowhome. A year later I learned to ride without training wheels in the cul-de-sac of the trailer park where we briefly lived. (Yes, really). Who can forget that moment when the wobbles suddenly, like magic, turn to balance? A moment of triumph that we get just once in our lives, that we never unlearn.
age 25: on a trip to Buffalo to visit my old-fashioned pen-pal (who turned boyfriend that weekend); on my birthday we sat on the pier overlooking Lake Ontario and ate hot dogs and ice cream. Afterwards we hiked through the woods to eternal flame falls, though he kept the flame itself a surprise. I thought we were just on a nice hike. it was a sweet, simple day.
30 days until my birthday. I have my free ticket to Disneyland, and a plane ticket, and plans to see my sister, along with Cristina at her home in Santa Barbara. And MICKEY MOUSE, of course. I plan on eating popsicles for breakfast. And wearing a crown all day.
April 28, 2009
anniversary
Who would sit through a plot as preposterous as ours,
married after years apart? Chance meetings may work
early in stories, but at operas, darling, in Texas?
A bachelor pilot, I fled Laredo for the weekend,
stopping at the opera from boredom, music I least expected.
Of all the zoos and honky-tonks south of Dallas,
who would believe I would find you there on the stairs,
Madame Butterfly about to start? When you moved
four years before, I lost all hope of dying happy,
dogfighting my way through pilot training, reckless,
in terror only when I saw the man beside you.
I had pictured him rich and splendid in my mind
a thousand times, thinking you married with babies
somewhere in Tahiti, Spain, the south of France.
When I saw the lucky devil I hated—only your date,
but I didn't know—he stopped gloating, watching you wave,
turned old and bitter like the crone in Shangri La.
Destiny happens only in plays and cheap movies—
but here, here on my desk is your photo, decades later,
and I hear sounds from another room of our house,
and when I rise amazed and follow, you are there.
Anniversary, Walt McDonald
married after years apart? Chance meetings may work
early in stories, but at operas, darling, in Texas?
A bachelor pilot, I fled Laredo for the weekend,
stopping at the opera from boredom, music I least expected.
Of all the zoos and honky-tonks south of Dallas,
who would believe I would find you there on the stairs,
Madame Butterfly about to start? When you moved
four years before, I lost all hope of dying happy,
dogfighting my way through pilot training, reckless,
in terror only when I saw the man beside you.
I had pictured him rich and splendid in my mind
a thousand times, thinking you married with babies
somewhere in Tahiti, Spain, the south of France.
When I saw the lucky devil I hated—only your date,
but I didn't know—he stopped gloating, watching you wave,
turned old and bitter like the crone in Shangri La.
Destiny happens only in plays and cheap movies—
but here, here on my desk is your photo, decades later,
and I hear sounds from another room of our house,
and when I rise amazed and follow, you are there.
Anniversary, Walt McDonald
April 22, 2009
Years later they find themselves talking
about chances, moments when their lives
might have swerved off
for the smallest reason.
What if
I hadn’t phoned, he says, that morning?
What if you’d been out,
as you were when I tried three times
the night before?
Then she tells him a secret.
She’d been there all evening, and she knew
he was the one calling, which was why
she hadn’t answered.
Because she felt—
because she was certain—her life would change
if she picked up the phone, said hello,
said, I was just thinking
of you.
I was afraid,
she tells him. And in the morning
I also knew it was you, but I just
answered the phone
the way anyone
answers a phone when it starts to ring,
not thinking you have a choice.
-- marriage, lawrence raab
another softball practice tonight; it was much colder and not as successful, personally, as the last. but as I came charging past home plate, one of our Rigoletto cast members, who came to join us for the evening -- a cast member for whom, earlier in the day, I had tracked down an Ernani score -- said, in surprise, "you run like a deer."
about chances, moments when their lives
might have swerved off
for the smallest reason.
What if
I hadn’t phoned, he says, that morning?
What if you’d been out,
as you were when I tried three times
the night before?
Then she tells him a secret.
She’d been there all evening, and she knew
he was the one calling, which was why
she hadn’t answered.
Because she felt—
because she was certain—her life would change
if she picked up the phone, said hello,
said, I was just thinking
of you.
I was afraid,
she tells him. And in the morning
I also knew it was you, but I just
answered the phone
the way anyone
answers a phone when it starts to ring,
not thinking you have a choice.
-- marriage, lawrence raab
another softball practice tonight; it was much colder and not as successful, personally, as the last. but as I came charging past home plate, one of our Rigoletto cast members, who came to join us for the evening -- a cast member for whom, earlier in the day, I had tracked down an Ernani score -- said, in surprise, "you run like a deer."
April 19, 2009
sunday, mid-april
it's a Sunday morning, full of abundant sunshine. I've been keeping the blinds open in my bedroom; it means waking to panels of light on the bedspread at 7:30 in the morning. This morning, tea in hand, I sat on the rocking chair on my balcony, wrapped in a blanket, and wrote a letter. Today it will be in the mid-70s; I am in rehearsal for most of the afternoon. As a concubine I ride two different baritones (Rigoletto, Marullo) like horses.
Speaking of horses: yesterday I helped Heather, the barn owner, strip and reinstall the mats in 9 of her stalls, which took us the better part of the morning. Afterwards she took me to lunch at the Redland Cafe, the little hole-in-the-wall down the street where 80% of the customers are fresh from a day working the land and know every waitress. And she handed me Cookie's registration papers, along with listed bloodlines of her sire and dam, and baby pictures. As of yesterday, I own 100% of my horse. Yesterday after lunch I went for a ride; she spooked at some mystery thing out of my sight and as she bolted my saddle listed about fifty degrees to the right. This is what you get for deciding your girth is 'not really tight, but tight enough.' Thankfully she has a long, thick mane, so I just held on. She only bolted ten feet or so; when she stopped she stood there calmly, as if nothing had happened. My saddle had slipped so far I had to dismount to fix it. Later, as I was cleaning one of her hind feet, she pooped, missing my head by roughly two inches. Ah, horses.
Speaking of horses: yesterday I helped Heather, the barn owner, strip and reinstall the mats in 9 of her stalls, which took us the better part of the morning. Afterwards she took me to lunch at the Redland Cafe, the little hole-in-the-wall down the street where 80% of the customers are fresh from a day working the land and know every waitress. And she handed me Cookie's registration papers, along with listed bloodlines of her sire and dam, and baby pictures. As of yesterday, I own 100% of my horse. Yesterday after lunch I went for a ride; she spooked at some mystery thing out of my sight and as she bolted my saddle listed about fifty degrees to the right. This is what you get for deciding your girth is 'not really tight, but tight enough.' Thankfully she has a long, thick mane, so I just held on. She only bolted ten feet or so; when she stopped she stood there calmly, as if nothing had happened. My saddle had slipped so far I had to dismount to fix it. Later, as I was cleaning one of her hind feet, she pooped, missing my head by roughly two inches. Ah, horses.
April 17, 2009
fun with texts
I started collecting my text messages in a file on my laptop a couple years ago, since I always agonized about deleting the funny/sweet ones. (I was tickled to discover that Sarah does the same thing on her blog). For your amusement (maybe):
Oh! I could have saved you with my two people, three napkin rule!
Remember the Flowbee? What the hell kind of person trusts their vacuum to give them a haircut?
My drink says "nourishing the body whole" I thought it said "nourishing the baby whale"
I just saw writing on a bathroom wall that was in exactly your handwriting and it said 'we are going to have open sexual intercourse on every street corner in AMERICA!'
totally thought the bumper sticker in front of me said i heart hell
I just ate grilled cheese with spicy, crunchy indian snacks in it dipped in barbecue sauce. I am never having sex again.
While you were having sex, I was having a sex dream about me and bill clinton.
At the airport. Just heard in the still of the night scored for bass clarzihorn, oboe, floten and possibly also b flat clarzihorn. it was painful.
Spent a pleasant evening at the hot tub with officer mike where we discussed taxes and his dental work. do I live the life or what?
Someone else's mexican fiance is getting me drunk in a bar that looks exactly like my gram's basement. Strip Polka is playing on the jukebox because I requested it. any last words?
POOP TEA!
I just had the impulse to send tiger a text message. (ed. note: Tiger is a cat)
Ava is going to whittle the driftwood jesus!!
Maybe it's Juan Valdez. That'd be sweet. I hope he rides a donkey in columbia sometimes
Oh. Spontaneous choreographed group dancing. Most tragic movie move.
HI jeSSICA ARENT YOU PROUD? MY FIRST TEXT MESSAGE! LOVE MOM
You were just used as an example in rehearsal. Naughty librarian!
Oh! I could have saved you with my two people, three napkin rule!
Remember the Flowbee? What the hell kind of person trusts their vacuum to give them a haircut?
My drink says "nourishing the body whole" I thought it said "nourishing the baby whale"
I just saw writing on a bathroom wall that was in exactly your handwriting and it said 'we are going to have open sexual intercourse on every street corner in AMERICA!'
totally thought the bumper sticker in front of me said i heart hell
I just ate grilled cheese with spicy, crunchy indian snacks in it dipped in barbecue sauce. I am never having sex again.
While you were having sex, I was having a sex dream about me and bill clinton.
At the airport. Just heard in the still of the night scored for bass clarzihorn, oboe, floten and possibly also b flat clarzihorn. it was painful.
Spent a pleasant evening at the hot tub with officer mike where we discussed taxes and his dental work. do I live the life or what?
Someone else's mexican fiance is getting me drunk in a bar that looks exactly like my gram's basement. Strip Polka is playing on the jukebox because I requested it. any last words?
POOP TEA!
I just had the impulse to send tiger a text message. (ed. note: Tiger is a cat)
Ava is going to whittle the driftwood jesus!!
Maybe it's Juan Valdez. That'd be sweet. I hope he rides a donkey in columbia sometimes
Oh. Spontaneous choreographed group dancing. Most tragic movie move.
HI jeSSICA ARENT YOU PROUD? MY FIRST TEXT MESSAGE! LOVE MOM
You were just used as an example in rehearsal. Naughty librarian!
April 16, 2009
the titanic
So this is how it feels, the deck tilting,
the world slipping away as one
sitting at a desk writes a check.
The Titanic went down titanically
like a goddess glittering,
Pinioned to an iceberg, she sank
almost thankfully while tiny mortals
leapt into the sea
and the band played Nearer My God to Thee.
But what happened to the signals of distress?
Nobody believed it was all really happening.
I still can’t believe that it happened to me.
As a child, I stared horrified at the photograph
and the vision of that scene in the moonlit sea.
We will be one of the survivors, we think,
then something looms up like catastrophe.
All life, it seems, is the morning after
and love is the most beautiful of absolute disasters.
-- June Robertson Beisch
the world slipping away as one
sitting at a desk writes a check.
The Titanic went down titanically
like a goddess glittering,
Pinioned to an iceberg, she sank
almost thankfully while tiny mortals
leapt into the sea
and the band played Nearer My God to Thee.
But what happened to the signals of distress?
Nobody believed it was all really happening.
I still can’t believe that it happened to me.
As a child, I stared horrified at the photograph
and the vision of that scene in the moonlit sea.
We will be one of the survivors, we think,
then something looms up like catastrophe.
All life, it seems, is the morning after
and love is the most beautiful of absolute disasters.
-- June Robertson Beisch
April 14, 2009
the Nub chronicles
some back story: last year when my family visited, my eleven-year-old sister bought herself a chipmunk puppet, promptly called Chippy, who has become a ubiquitous fixture around the house. I had interactions with Chippy every day for the two weeks I was home at Christmas. Ashley's become adept at manipulating the puppet; he has a pretty extensive vocabulary of moods and facial features.
Later in the summer, prompted, of course, by Chippy, my brother (also eleven years old) bought himself a porcupine puppet, called Quilliam. (Travis is particularly good at this sort of clever word play). Then, this past fall, they bought my mom a squirrel, Sully, for her birthday. That left me as the only member of my immediate family without a puppet familiar. I had suggested I wanted a skunk.
My mother sends me an Easter basket every year, and this year it took days for me to be able to pick it up from the leasing office at my apartment, since they open after I leave for work and close before I usually get home. My sister was unnaturally impatient to have me pick up the package. On Friday, just before leaving for the airport, I finally got it. Inside my Easter basket (actually a tote bag) was my new hedgehog.
Enclosed was a letter, which I share with you verbatim:
Dear Jessica, congratulations! You finally have a puppet of your own please call us to tell us what you have named it. Chippy is a little upset that the hedgehog gets to go but he doesn't get to live or visit where he is from. He asked me if you could read the rest of this to your knew family member. Oregon is a cool state and you'll love it there but there are some things you need to know before you get to cozy. Number one there is less humidity there then here so you can breathe a little better. Number two make sure that Jessica (your owner) takes you on most of her car rides because they are loads of fun! Number three is to be careful of little children because they will hurt you, but don't worry about Ashley or Travis because their gentle. Also you won't have to worry as much because you don't have the family over your house. Fourth or last when Jessica flies here to Maryland make sure she takes you. I'm a little homesick but I hope you'll have a great time there as I did send postcards.
Love
Writer Chippy but Quill, and Sully
p.s. don't forget to wave to people in other cars and make sure she'll let you drive!
So I stuffed the as-yet-unnamed hedgehog into my backpack and headed to the airport.
Meet Nub.
Top row: Nub preps the four-wheeler; Nub finds a shrub; Nub practices his marksmanship. Bottom row: Nub meets a plant version of himself; Nub enjoys a Sunday drive; Nub is locked & loaded into his airplane seat.
Later in the summer, prompted, of course, by Chippy, my brother (also eleven years old) bought himself a porcupine puppet, called Quilliam. (Travis is particularly good at this sort of clever word play). Then, this past fall, they bought my mom a squirrel, Sully, for her birthday. That left me as the only member of my immediate family without a puppet familiar. I had suggested I wanted a skunk.
My mother sends me an Easter basket every year, and this year it took days for me to be able to pick it up from the leasing office at my apartment, since they open after I leave for work and close before I usually get home. My sister was unnaturally impatient to have me pick up the package. On Friday, just before leaving for the airport, I finally got it. Inside my Easter basket (actually a tote bag) was my new hedgehog.
Enclosed was a letter, which I share with you verbatim:
Dear Jessica, congratulations! You finally have a puppet of your own please call us to tell us what you have named it. Chippy is a little upset that the hedgehog gets to go but he doesn't get to live or visit where he is from. He asked me if you could read the rest of this to your knew family member. Oregon is a cool state and you'll love it there but there are some things you need to know before you get to cozy. Number one there is less humidity there then here so you can breathe a little better. Number two make sure that Jessica (your owner) takes you on most of her car rides because they are loads of fun! Number three is to be careful of little children because they will hurt you, but don't worry about Ashley or Travis because their gentle. Also you won't have to worry as much because you don't have the family over your house. Fourth or last when Jessica flies here to Maryland make sure she takes you. I'm a little homesick but I hope you'll have a great time there as I did send postcards.
Love
Writer Chippy but Quill, and Sully
p.s. don't forget to wave to people in other cars and make sure she'll let you drive!
So I stuffed the as-yet-unnamed hedgehog into my backpack and headed to the airport.
Meet Nub.
Top row: Nub preps the four-wheeler; Nub finds a shrub; Nub practices his marksmanship. Bottom row: Nub meets a plant version of himself; Nub enjoys a Sunday drive; Nub is locked & loaded into his airplane seat.
April 13, 2009
40 miles of sky
this weekend: vast expanses of empty desert, dust, dirt roads, mountains. the occasional antelope, the cow crossing the road, several bands of wild horses (!) grazing idly or trotting off. with a little luck I managed to get my day of sunshine, of driving with the windows down, of being tiny in so much space. there was thoughtful conversation, and thoughtful silence. it was hard to come home.
also, see you later, number five.
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