The Letter
February 9th, 2009
Bathsheba with King David’s Letter, Rembrandt
A letter makes it personal. It reaches us like a whisper. We may steal off to some private corner to unseal the envelope, if only to better reflect on the words without distraction. We go off to that corner because we can. A letter can be carried anywhere. We can secret it between the pages of a book, or in a pocket, or in your bosom beneath your blouse.
To sit down and compose a letter means taking your time, distilling your intent. There’s paper to choose. The right pen. The envelope. The stamp. In days of old we’d seal our letters closed with wax.
La Lecture de la Lettre, Picasso
When writing the letter, the words must fall carefully to avoid starting over again. Of course, we can leave in the scratch-out, the fingerprint, the smudge, the spill of coffee. To the spouse, lover, or dear friend the misfortune is not a stain, but your actual presence on the page. Leave it, you create a deeper intimacy.
Letters can be heart-filled, or poisoned. A letter can be sensual, tearful, raging, philosophical, mundane. A letter has a weight and texture that we can know through our hands. It can carry a lock of hair, or the trace of perfume.
Napolean scolded his Josephene, “You never write to me at all, you do not love your husband; you know the pleasure that your letters give him yet you cannot even manage to write him half a dozen lines, dashed off in a moment! What then do you do all day, Madame? What business is so vital that it robs you of the time to write to your faithful lover?”
One way or another, a letter begs the writer’s attention and time.
A letter is handled. Held. Touched. Read. Reread. Folded. The envelope is licked and addressed. The stamp is carefully, or carelessly, secured in its corner. One way or another, you are worth the time and the 42 or some odd cents.
Ask the soldier on the front what it is to receive a letter. If it’s from a wife or lover, he might hold it to his nose hoping to catch her scent. He might kiss it. Lick the envelope’s glue as if seizing the taste of her lips from afar.
Captain Joseph Bush wrote to his wife from Vietnam, “If my mail means as much to you as yours does to me then I know how you feel when the mailbox is empty. Whether or not I get a letter determines if it’s a good day or not.” (1)
A letter holds the other’s presence. It demands thought. Reflection. A sense that the distance between us matters.
“ooooh, my baby she wrote me a letter…”, that soulful Joe Cocker
____________________________________________________________
from Dear America: Letters Home from Vietnam, edited by Bernard Edelman.