Letter

I have written letters all my life. My eldest brother went to a seminary in high school when I was about 5 or 6. I wrote him crayon letters, no doubt pictures with my name printed in multicolored letters all across the page. I do not remember what I would have said, but I clearly remember doing them, and feeling more important, connected to my big brother. As both my brothers moved out of the house, to college, into the Air Force, into a religious cult, off to Thailand during the Vietnam War, and I struggled to grow up in their wake, I would be directed to blow them a kiss every night, sent in the proper direction, like praying to Mecca. The letters followed, becoming more legible, rambling streams of consciousness and childhood thoughts and miseries. I would hone my writing skills, as my mother had for her own brothers in WWII, in letters to my wandering brothers.

My first real job was as an assistant camp counselor. I wrote letters from the start, to my mother, to my Aunt Evelyn, to my brothers still. Now I was the one to be away, and I knew well how much my letters meant to those at home, and found out how valuable they were to me- so far away for the first time. When I moved to Kalkaska, at 19, I lived for the letters both written by me, and sent to me. I had developed a chatty, rambling style, often several pages each.

I wrote to my brothers for many years. I sometimes wrote to Aunts, but I got to prefer simply making phone calls. I would write letters, then never mail them because I was not quite finished. When I moved to Salt Lake, I renewed the writing, although to my brothers only rarely, and less while the "marriage" fell into shame. All renewed full force when I went off for the Army National Guard training. I wrote letters constantly, daily to the not-yet-ex, doing my best, yearning for love and acceptance. I got more letters from my Mother-in-law back. She was the most faithful writer, and I sent her quiet thanks today in prayer if not in letters. I wrote him far less when I went for advanced training after a miserably urgent trip home to save that useless connection. In my last year with him, I wrote very little to anyone, then not at all. I was isolated, and disowned and grimly considering not living much longer.

Then there was that little trip to Saudi Arabia at the invitation of the US Government. My material got better- nothing like a war to inspire cynicism and wry humor. I wrote daily letters to everyone I could think of, family, a brief period of lucid connection with my eldest brother, open letters to my work at the library. I had stories to tell, and my own no longer felt over.

D was the Unit mail clerk, so when not on duty myself, I hung around with him as he passed out mail. He came to know everyone by name, and became the focus of intense frustration and great joy. Although brusque and irritable, clixby to the extreme, he faithfully went out of his way to make sure folks got their mail. He detested the musical Christmas cards, which often went off and could not be delivered, nor shut up. The masses of mail "to any soldier" wound up dumped on us, as a hospital unit not out in the dirt, clogging access to mail from our own families and friends. We rarely complained out loud, but it was a constant bother, with rare random letters being of use. I did get a letter with folded cranes on my 29th birthday, though, which touched me deeply.

Home again, with D in my life, I stopped writing paper letters, and rarely ever do today. But I began posting on Mike's BBS on D's Atari. I had to think more about what I wrote, as the guys reading had instant access and no inhibitions or social manners, and would rip at ill considered statements or unformed ideas. My writing had to be more careful, but the immediacy and free form aspect, as in letters, remained. Later, email became my forum, my medium. It lay between the ephemerality of phone calls and the need for formality of epistles. Clarity and brevity, logical progression and natural language, were my virtues to be pursued.

Then a nascent friend moved away, and we began to write, growing an amazing friendship we had not been able to foster with opposite work schedules. Email, then a blog, then another, and we really appreciated each other because of the distance of writing that allowed us to become very close. The paradox of the confessional, we found it easier to speak truth across separation, through electronic letters. Now 2000 miles away, she is my closest friend, and I blog to her. I adore other's feedback, but she is my audience.

All this to explain why I write in essays. They are actually letters, formed and tuned as they never were when sent to family or friends. This was just my idea of how emulate James Burke of Connections fame. My twist on following a thread, to weave a story, what D, the historian, calls deconstructionist. Letters are what I know, a form and a length I understand and can get in my head all at once. I write letters in my head as I walk, when I am alone, when I am troubled or interested or pondering. I spin the idea and shape it with words until it starts to look like a useful pot.


P.S.

A special thanks for those of you who leave comments, it's always sweeter after sending a letter, to get a response. To know that the message got there, and was worth the stamp to reply.