Words You Can Hold

I should have left it unopened. In the midst of spring cleaning this weekend, I came across hundreds of old letters and cards in what I thought was a plastic tote, which actually turned out to be a rabbit hole that I tumbled headlong into for a good part of the day.

The rubber bands that once bound each sender’s missives had become dry and cracked, breaking like peanut brittle into dozens of shards when I picked up the pile they were meant to hold together. Some pieces dropped out of sight between the now-scattered correspondence while others clung as though they’d been glued on … not unlike the divergent directions of my connections with those many letter writers.

Deciding that envelopes would be a better way to organize them, I began restacking the letters and cards by sender so I could clean out the fallen rubber band soldiers at the bottom of the tote. It was all going smoothly until I came across the first of many letters from Mom. That familiar cursive, written in pencil in unbelievably straight lines on unlined scalloped stationery, started this way:

2/16/87

My Dear Terri,

I have your letter here before me — was so delighted to see a letter from you in my mailbox. It came at the end of a really crummy day and cheered me up no end!

You’ve got a big decision ahead of you, and I admire your courage. You’re right about risks — sometimes you have to take reasonable risks in order to grow.

That’s when the hole swallowed me up.

Mom was responding to my letter about next steps I might take when my then-current job ended on May 31. (I’m pretty sure she added the “reasonable” part … her subtle way of affirming my choices while injecting a bit of motherly caution.)

She wrote about the snowy weather, her struggles with trying to quit smoking after she’d started up again, my younger sister’s progress in college, how she’d started using Fiber Trim and calcium in her weight loss program, the organizational changes she was making at work, her dinner that evening at Coco’s with her friend Kim.

All seemingly mundane details to an outsider — and maybe even to me the first time I read them. But they rooted me then (and still do) in the soil of her everyday life, which is where so much of the richness lies, isn’t it? We easily remember the highest peaks and the deepest valleys, but it’s the in-between we traverse to get there that so often falls away — not only from memory, but from our recognition of its role in shaping our lives … in much the same way the slow, almost imperceptible, processes of erosion and accretion can change the course of a riverbed over time.

Rereading in succession years of letters from the same person long after they were written, you begin to observe things you didn’t notice before — like seeing the traces of a pentimento after you think you’ve come to know every nuance of the original masterpiece. And it can take your breath away … or, as in my case, make you bawl like a baby.

The remembering comes with what they wrote. The discovery happens in noticing how they talked about things, the common themes across letters, what was left unsaid, even how their handwriting changed mid-paragraph.

Reading again every one of the nearly 75 cards and letters from my mom reinforced my perceptions of her unshakeable resolve and unflinching tenacity in the face of significant challenges throughout her life, her continual focus on her weight, her ongoing desire to learn and try new things, and her deep love for me.

Other realizations, like floaters on the periphery of my vision, began to come into sharper focus the more I read between the lines: the impossibly high standards she set for herself, her entrenched self-doubt despite appearing outwardly assured, her seeming belief that her value was tied to how hard she worked, her need to keep her home sparkling because it was one thing in her world she could control, and how hard she was on herself despite extending deep compassion and grace to others.

The switch flipped, the spotlight shone, and my mom became illuminated in a way I’d not seen before. Beneath the contours of the strong lines, subtle shading and rich palette of colors I thought I knew so well, a wholly new image emerged.

It was me.

The me who, like my mom, throws herself into helping others succeed, cheers them on and is there to help them up when they fall but who seemingly has little idea of how to do the same for herself. The me who, like my mom, is expert at getting by without ever really getting ahead … the one who continually seems to find herself in situations that hold her back instead of propel her forward. The me who, like my mom, has a really hard time asking for help.

That’s what broke me.

***

Having had enough tunneling for one day, I climbed out of the rabbit hole … then flung myself down a different one a day later.

This time, determined not to get caught up in reading everything, I scanned letters from family and friends I’m still connected to and spent more time rereading some of the correspondence from people who were once close friends but now are no longer in my life. On this long, slow stroll down memory lane, remembrances I’d long ago tucked away kept popping up … some evoked smiles, others elicited tears.

Some of the smiles came in rereading the wide variety of nicknames and terms of endearment beyond “Dear Terri” that opened the letters: Hi Ter-ber, Portable!, Hey Portawoman, My Dear Miss Porter, Mon Cher Terri, Hello Terrance, Hey Sis, and My Dearest One. It’s the feeling of someone flinging open the door and welcoming me in with a hearty hug.

The first few sentences often would start with a thank-you for my recent letter, an apology for not responding sooner or a description of the backdrop at the moment in time when they began writing … curled up with the dog on a snowy day, sitting outside at a picnic table, having a cup of tea before bed …

Exchanging letters in college, we talked at length about our classes — the ones we liked and the 8 a.m. ones in which we could barely stay awake — the really great professors and the awful ones, learning to navigate living with a roommate and her boyfriend, meeting new friends, missing old ones, pining for love interests, second-guessing ourselves, supporting each other. Letters after graduation were much the same, though work/career concerns supplanted our angst about school.

Knowing we might not hear back for weeks or even months when writing a letter, our questions to each other often were contemplative, leading us to ponder things on a different scale than we typically do now via email or text — not “How was your day?” but “How have you been?” I think there’s value in that.

With the immediacy of communication today via email and social media, we can plot in real time every single point on the timeline of our evolution. When Facebook first started, I remember people doing just that. I actually enjoyed reading and sharing about everyday moments … before the backlash of “We don’t need to hear about what you ate for dinner” kicked in, ads took over, and the platform became a mouthpiece for political commentary and divisiveness.

Outside that kind of content, much of what I see now are the highs and lows of people’s lives: from births, graduations, engagements, weddings, travel and celebrations to death announcements and memorials, pets crossing the Rainbow Bridge, health concerns and GoFundMe requests. I’m not knocking it — only suggesting that when the primary focus of what we share are the peaks and valleys, we miss out on or take for granted the sublime magic of the everyday.

Letters provided more of that big-picture view. The time between a question asked and answered opened a space for both reflection and exposition of a thoughtful reply. And with each successive missive, more of the sender would come through … not only in what they said, but in the way they wrote it — to the point where the letters themselves would take on their own personality, shaped as much by the author’s voice as by their selection of paper and writing instrument, their handwriting, and, especially, the imperfections.

I’ve received letters on wide-ruled and college-ruled 8.5 x 11 paper, some still with the fringes on after having been ripped out of a notebook. One friend, a particularly prolific correspondent, mostly wrote on yellow legal pads, both sides. Stationery, both plain and fancy, was popular, both lined and unlined in an array of colors: white, cream, yellow, green, blue, pink and gray. Some with light pink polka dots in the background, others with poinsettias in the lower left corner, still others with Snoopy or Woodstock images at the bottom.

Delicate light-blue air-mailers came from London, Malawi and Taiwan. Many other letters, most handwritten and some typed, arrived on company letterhead, onionskin, copy paper, notepad pages, even dot-matrix printer paper folded every which way to fit into an envelope. Some sent cards they’d made using watercolors, pastels, colored pencils, crayons, collage or a black felt-tip pen.

The sheer physicality of each piece — the act of holding another’s words in your hands — is in itself a unique connection to the person who took the time to put pen to paper, stuff the envelope, seal and address it, place a stamp on it, then drop it in the mailbox.

That connection deepens upon reading another’s words in their own handwriting, which is an art form in itself … like the sprawling, open cursive of my existentialist thinker friend or my very tall friend’s sharply angled, narrow cursive with full-length ascenders and descenders that stretch the letters to their maximum height. Or the precise print of a friend who could write the Declaration of Independence on a postage stamp and, not surprisingly, prefers to fly below the radar. Or the nearly indecipherable scrawlings of a friend with ADHD whose thoughts come in double-time to the rate at which she can transcribe them. Each is a beautiful custom font that conveys the personality of the sender in a way no email ever could.

While I do appreciate the expediency of email and texting and acknowledge that emojis can make those messages less sterile, nothing can replace the one-of-a-kind doodles, hand-drawn cartoons, mini landscape and flower sketches, stickers and other personal touches that have dotted my many letters over the years.

Often what I love most about handwritten letters are the unintended parts: crossed-out words, sentence insertions, ink blobs to cover mistakes and corresponding smudges or fingerprints nearby, comments in the margin, arrows showing me where to read next when I’ve come to the end of a page, little “oops!” bubbles next to an error, the occasional coffee or tea stain or ripped corner. All of it says, “A human made me!”

***

Although letters as a form of communication have largely gone the way of the dinosaur, I read recently that love letters are actually making a comeback. I’m not surprised. Taking the time to think about what someone (not just a romantic interest) means to you, then putting those feelings into words to share with that person … well, I can think of no better gift.

I’ve sent such letters and have been lucky to receive some too. But that’s a different rabbit hole for another time …