 Drowning in Letters |
|
Click on each image for a larger excerpt.
My friend J. and I met in 10th grade Latin class. We were very, very stupid. We've done a lot of very, very stupid things over the years. We've loved and hated and loved and hated each other, and our relationship waxes and wanes and morphs and explodes and implodes, but it's always been there. He still writes in this strange slanted print. He wrote me this letter the summer after junior year, in 1991, when I was at camp in North Carolina. This was before he ever kissed me.
I met Jonny spent the summer of '96 working at Disney World. I made many great friends that summer, and I have now lost touch with every single one of them. He was the one I stayed in touch with the longest. And so it goes.
Vinny was another friend from the Disney summer. I will always love Vinny, because he gave me The Secret Garden and he told me that I had Lily's eyes.
Adam was Vinny's roommate. We weren't especially close, but this letter cracked me up. I remember sitting in his room and slapping the shit out of him one drunken night, but I don't even remember why. I just remember that I was furious, and he burst out laughing, and from that night on, we were friends, getting stoned whenever the opportunity arose.
Jeff was my very first boyfriend when we were kids. We wrote to each other when I was in college and he was all over the world being a Marine. I have an insanely thick folder full of letters from him from those years. We had a long distance romance upon his return from the Marines while I taught in Florida. It crashed and burned. His handwriting was painstakingly neat and a true reflection of his anal-retentiveness. I will always treasure every word he wrote to me. These are the last.
Reid and I met in high school and spent a couple of the most awesome summers of all time working in the mountains of North Carolina and Colorado. The folder of letters from him is pretty thick, too, as we've always tried to keep in touch that way over the years rather than resorting to email. In our letters, we've ranted about music and books and sobbed about failed romances and blathered on stream-of-consciously about everything in between. Reid always writes in black ink in a messy, strange print/cursive swirl.
S.'s handwriting is severe and slanted and all upper-case. The formation of his letters is practically horizontal. I really having nothing more to say about him right now.
My cousin Campbell is one of the wisest and most gorgeous humans on the planet. Sometimes he writes so lyrically and brilliantly that I have to read sentences two and three times to understand what he's conveying. Sometimes when I write in cursive, my handwriting reminds me of his.
About this time in ...
© Copyright 2004 elb |
At first I was going to concentrate on birthday correspondence, but I branched out a little bit. As with old pictures, I had to cut myself off at a reasonable number, as the act of going through old letters is akin to the feeling of drowning. No one can take on the task of placing all their memories under glass to preserve them electronically. That's what folders and files and shoeboxes and closet shelves and hearts are for. That's where most of my memories will stay. ::: Better than a thousand hollow words Is one word that brings peace. Buddha |
