I forgot I might see, so many beautiful things
[letter]
I haven't received a letter in the mail in a long time. I receive emails everyday, but not physical letters, where someone has taken the time to write by longhand and post it in the mail. Not to denigrate emails -- because I know writing emails take time, maybe not as much time, but time it does take, and can be more multi-media friendly, and often easier on the hand, well, for touch typists anyway -- but a letter in the mail seems magical, as if a piece of paper after having travelled kilometres suddenly have the power to connect me physically to the writer. Handwriting is unique, you can't mistaken someone's dotted i's with circles or loopy descenders, just as you can't forget someone's extremely long eyebrows or mole on his nose. Even a typed letter evokes a certain magical quality, perhaps from the stamps that may have been licked by the sender. When I come home after work, I always, excitedly, check if I got mail. Opening up my mac Mail or google mail doesn't quite compare. Perhaps it's because I read email every day at work, and during a stressful project, receiving another email fills me with dread. And while I almost always get junk mail or bills, and the occasional postcard (because I collect them and cajole friends and acquaintances to mail them to me), I still hope to get a letter in the mail.
I haven't received a letter in a long time. But I haven't written one in a long time too. It kinda goes both ways. While writing Christmas cards (do they count as letters? I'm not sure why, but I don't think so.) I found an old unfinished letter stuck in an old notebook amongst the stacks of note cards, Christmas cards, stationery. It was dated June 19, 1996, on yellowed, lined, three hole punched paper, and addressed to shib. It was a beginning of a letter, written just before the beginning of a class I was taking that summer (19th century lit, if I recall correctly). I don't remember writing the letter, which isn't surprising since I never finished nor mailed it to shib. Even though it wasn't addressed to me, and even though it was I who had wrote the letter, reading it made me feel as if I had received a letter from someone I had known for a long time, but with whom I had lost touch. The words and tone of the letter were familiar, the voice was mine, but it didn't really feel like it was me.
Still, it was a hand written letter, and seeing my handwriting made me connect to the younger (and I like to pretend, more innocent) joe that lived over a decade ago. That time in 1996, I would have just met Y a month earlier, and had fallen unexpectedly in love. Y would've been driving through the Rockies that summer, working with some researcher on rock slides, sending me letters from small towns, his somewhat girlish handwriting triggering many daydreams of seeing him again, while my mind focused in class, and my heart in BC. I think shib would've been in Atlanta, at Emory, and it wasn't that long ago, then, that she left Toronto. I asked her about people I had nearly forgotten, and I had talked about friends whom I've not seen in a long while. The letter was happy, excited, and felt like it was written on the cusp of a whole new life not yet revealed to that joe in 1996. He had so much optimism, (perhaps, that's the by product of young love?), he had so much to look forward to, and he had so little experience in life, full of unearned wisdom he could not understand.
Reading the letter was both strangely enlightening and unnerving. A part of me wonders if I ever knew this joe, and wonder who is this joe in 2008? They are like two different persons. Over 12 years later, shib is now just beginning a whole new life with a whole new family, Y and I are good friends, family even, but we haven't been a couple for several years now. My optimism has been replaced with a tempered hope that life goes on without too much pain and sorrow, that will inevitably find us all. I still believe that I have a lot to look forward to, and while I have been very quiet this past year on this blog, I am excited and feel that my passion had been re-ignited from last autumn in 2007, pushing me forward this past year. But this year has also been full of sorrow, as well as lots of changes, and I am still heartbroken over a brief moment I was in love again.
At some point I might finish that post about my past year, but for now, I finished a new letter to shib, In that short letter, I pondered over us, then and now, in the yellowed light of the years past. I sent her both letters, and a home made Christmas card (which Y and I silkscreened on the floor of our kitchen!), and I wonder now, what she thinks of the joe and shib of 1996? Does it matter what we think? We shouldn't forget who we were, but we must always move forward. Perhaps I'll just wish that we all continue to grow and learn and look forward to wonderful new experiences in 2009.
Hope everyone's Christmas and festivities (for those who don't celebrate Christmas) were very merry, full of food and good drink, as well as good company. Ours were! And if I don't post again before the new year, Happy New Year to everyone, and may 2009 greet you with good fortune, happiness and most of all, lots of love!
Write some letters, send some postcards, and I'll try to post more often too!
I haven't received a letter in the mail in a long time. I receive emails everyday, but not physical letters, where someone has taken the time to write by longhand and post it in the mail. Not to denigrate emails -- because I know writing emails take time, maybe not as much time, but time it does take, and can be more multi-media friendly, and often easier on the hand, well, for touch typists anyway -- but a letter in the mail seems magical, as if a piece of paper after having travelled kilometres suddenly have the power to connect me physically to the writer. Handwriting is unique, you can't mistaken someone's dotted i's with circles or loopy descenders, just as you can't forget someone's extremely long eyebrows or mole on his nose. Even a typed letter evokes a certain magical quality, perhaps from the stamps that may have been licked by the sender. When I come home after work, I always, excitedly, check if I got mail. Opening up my mac Mail or google mail doesn't quite compare. Perhaps it's because I read email every day at work, and during a stressful project, receiving another email fills me with dread. And while I almost always get junk mail or bills, and the occasional postcard (because I collect them and cajole friends and acquaintances to mail them to me), I still hope to get a letter in the mail.
I haven't received a letter in a long time. But I haven't written one in a long time too. It kinda goes both ways. While writing Christmas cards (do they count as letters? I'm not sure why, but I don't think so.) I found an old unfinished letter stuck in an old notebook amongst the stacks of note cards, Christmas cards, stationery. It was dated June 19, 1996, on yellowed, lined, three hole punched paper, and addressed to shib. It was a beginning of a letter, written just before the beginning of a class I was taking that summer (19th century lit, if I recall correctly). I don't remember writing the letter, which isn't surprising since I never finished nor mailed it to shib. Even though it wasn't addressed to me, and even though it was I who had wrote the letter, reading it made me feel as if I had received a letter from someone I had known for a long time, but with whom I had lost touch. The words and tone of the letter were familiar, the voice was mine, but it didn't really feel like it was me.
Still, it was a hand written letter, and seeing my handwriting made me connect to the younger (and I like to pretend, more innocent) joe that lived over a decade ago. That time in 1996, I would have just met Y a month earlier, and had fallen unexpectedly in love. Y would've been driving through the Rockies that summer, working with some researcher on rock slides, sending me letters from small towns, his somewhat girlish handwriting triggering many daydreams of seeing him again, while my mind focused in class, and my heart in BC. I think shib would've been in Atlanta, at Emory, and it wasn't that long ago, then, that she left Toronto. I asked her about people I had nearly forgotten, and I had talked about friends whom I've not seen in a long while. The letter was happy, excited, and felt like it was written on the cusp of a whole new life not yet revealed to that joe in 1996. He had so much optimism, (perhaps, that's the by product of young love?), he had so much to look forward to, and he had so little experience in life, full of unearned wisdom he could not understand.
Reading the letter was both strangely enlightening and unnerving. A part of me wonders if I ever knew this joe, and wonder who is this joe in 2008? They are like two different persons. Over 12 years later, shib is now just beginning a whole new life with a whole new family, Y and I are good friends, family even, but we haven't been a couple for several years now. My optimism has been replaced with a tempered hope that life goes on without too much pain and sorrow, that will inevitably find us all. I still believe that I have a lot to look forward to, and while I have been very quiet this past year on this blog, I am excited and feel that my passion had been re-ignited from last autumn in 2007, pushing me forward this past year. But this year has also been full of sorrow, as well as lots of changes, and I am still heartbroken over a brief moment I was in love again.
At some point I might finish that post about my past year, but for now, I finished a new letter to shib, In that short letter, I pondered over us, then and now, in the yellowed light of the years past. I sent her both letters, and a home made Christmas card (which Y and I silkscreened on the floor of our kitchen!), and I wonder now, what she thinks of the joe and shib of 1996? Does it matter what we think? We shouldn't forget who we were, but we must always move forward. Perhaps I'll just wish that we all continue to grow and learn and look forward to wonderful new experiences in 2009.
Hope everyone's Christmas and festivities (for those who don't celebrate Christmas) were very merry, full of food and good drink, as well as good company. Ours were! And if I don't post again before the new year, Happy New Year to everyone, and may 2009 greet you with good fortune, happiness and most of all, lots of love!
Write some letters, send some postcards, and I'll try to post more often too!
posted by joe at 12:47 AM
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