Shoebox letters, or Memories don't fade, they just turn brown
Last Saturday, while cleaning out my closet, I went through an old pile of letters stored in a torn, dilapidated shoebox. These letters were written to me by friends and family between 1988 and 1993, the years when I went off the college and the year following graduation and working for some real cash. I decided to save the ones that were most dear and interesting by storing them in plastic sheets and into binders so that I can read them in chronological order.
It brought out a great wealth of strong, emotional ties that had never totally gone away. Some of the events that folks write about, the sad and happy ones (there weren't too many, for some reason), don't seem as urgent or as important as when they were first read, for obvious reasons, of course. Yet I look upon the writers with some quaint appreciation because they had the time to tear themselves away from their lives (and they did not let it go undescribed...) and give a little something about what was going on around them.
One of my favorite is a letter my cousin wrote to me while he was serving in the first Iraq war, in 1991. He describes the boredom and threat felt while overseas, and though he never actually stepped into Iraq, having been stationed in Kuwait, he complains about military double-speak and the wish to return home. He even draws a cartoon of him standing on the end of the line, waiting to board a 747 that will fly him back to the U.S. How can one discard a bittersweet letter like that? He could easily have been recalled into duty for the second war had he not left the reserves. He was really lucky this time around. Not so the first time...
Other letters rip me up inside. Old high school friends with whom I no longer have contact. Those are the ones that make me wonder why I'd let them go. Or maybe we both did it together without realizing that one or the other should have written back. The letters don't explain what happened. They just mark the date that they were last sent.
I haven't kept all of them. I've destroyed nearly one-third. Some people I don't care to recall anymore. Others are letters that seem to repeat themselves. I've kept iconic ones, those that mark important moments, and those whose friendships I've held dear. A few will be friendships in memory only, sadly, and yet ironically won't grow old in the strictest sense of the word. They're sort of trapped in time. They'll be static with no growth or ending. Just a permanent pause...
On a brighter note (get it?), the letters have spurred me to get back in touch with a few friends. One I found by just typing her name on Google. After sorting out the right (write?) person, I emailed her and she contacted me. I wrote to another friend. This time, I did it the old fashioned way: by hand, by letter, via correo. I like email a lot. But I find that writing a letter by hand recalls a better, more civilized time that, while it may never have actually existed, should have.
It brought out a great wealth of strong, emotional ties that had never totally gone away. Some of the events that folks write about, the sad and happy ones (there weren't too many, for some reason), don't seem as urgent or as important as when they were first read, for obvious reasons, of course. Yet I look upon the writers with some quaint appreciation because they had the time to tear themselves away from their lives (and they did not let it go undescribed...) and give a little something about what was going on around them.
One of my favorite is a letter my cousin wrote to me while he was serving in the first Iraq war, in 1991. He describes the boredom and threat felt while overseas, and though he never actually stepped into Iraq, having been stationed in Kuwait, he complains about military double-speak and the wish to return home. He even draws a cartoon of him standing on the end of the line, waiting to board a 747 that will fly him back to the U.S. How can one discard a bittersweet letter like that? He could easily have been recalled into duty for the second war had he not left the reserves. He was really lucky this time around. Not so the first time...
Other letters rip me up inside. Old high school friends with whom I no longer have contact. Those are the ones that make me wonder why I'd let them go. Or maybe we both did it together without realizing that one or the other should have written back. The letters don't explain what happened. They just mark the date that they were last sent.
I haven't kept all of them. I've destroyed nearly one-third. Some people I don't care to recall anymore. Others are letters that seem to repeat themselves. I've kept iconic ones, those that mark important moments, and those whose friendships I've held dear. A few will be friendships in memory only, sadly, and yet ironically won't grow old in the strictest sense of the word. They're sort of trapped in time. They'll be static with no growth or ending. Just a permanent pause...
On a brighter note (get it?), the letters have spurred me to get back in touch with a few friends. One I found by just typing her name on Google. After sorting out the right (write?) person, I emailed her and she contacted me. I wrote to another friend. This time, I did it the old fashioned way: by hand, by letter, via correo. I like email a lot. But I find that writing a letter by hand recalls a better, more civilized time that, while it may never have actually existed, should have.
posted by Alan at 12:39 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home