I’ve been lost—I’m still lost—in a box I brought down from the attic, packed tight with letters postmarked in the 70’s and 80’s. My first thought was to remove the stiff broken rubber bands that bundled them roughly into clumps by date or sender and dump them in the recycle.
I didn’t. I’ve been browsing, batch by batch. The box is half empty now, and I’m still adrift among them, surprised at what they render.
Like, for instance, the holes in my memory are huge.
Recently, a friend of mine mentioned a trip she’d taken to China with her mother.
“You went to China?!”
Then I found a letter from her in the box telling me she’d be leaving for China from Seattle, and could we meet?
Reading it, I thought, “What a shame we couldn’t meet!”
Yet another letter from her: “I’m so glad we could get together when I was on my way to China!”
One tiny hole in memory, repaired.
These letters from the ‘70s and ‘80s arrived in a time (before we carried our phones in our pockets) when the postman (always and only a man) was a highlight of each day. I would search among the flyers and solicitations (were there so many flyers and solicitations?) to find the real letters. We exchanged pages and pages, front and back, about our art and troubling news about our hearts—the thoughts and feelings that carried us through tempestuous times. (Did I mention we didn’t call each other, except sometimes on weekends when the rates were low?)
Most of the letters in my box are from my mother, who wrote at least weekly. She saved my letters as I saved hers—I found them when I cleared her house. But there are so many others in the box as well—from my sister, Thern, Sue, Debbie, Maureen, Glenn, Linda A, Linda O, Nancy, Anne, Marilyn, Bernie, Lyn, Mary, Patty. From wherever they were living, with news of whatever they were going through.
There are even letters from a Wendy and a Libby, with thanks for what I did for them—two more gaping holes in my memory!
There’s a note from Mrs. Eide (rhymes with "tidy”). She served banquets for the college president in his home; I was her kitchen support and server. She taught me how easy it is to cook if you clean up as you go—and how simple it is to accept anyone who comes your way. Of course, her life continued after I moved away, but I lost her when someone stole my address book from the back of my car as I was moving from one house to another in Seattle. Nowadays, I’d be able to find her again. Back then? No Google, no Internet, I was busy. By the time I searched, she’d probably moved to Arizona with her husband to be near her son.
Mrs. Eide is one of the few I really lost, but my communications shrank to the yearly Christmas notes, wishing folks another peaceful year. When and why did I fall away from really corresponding?
Ah, yes, the stolen address book.
Then I was pregnant and teaching again so soon after.
We moved to Japan for two years.
Another baby… another degree… the teaching years, when the pile of unsorted life behind my desk grew and grew.
I read. I skim. I set one or two aside to save, and then I carry the loose sheets and empty envelopes to the recycle, somewhat amazed that I can let them go.
But perhaps I’ll write a letter or two again—not a broadcast on Facebook (or Substack) but a letter that starts with “Dear friend-from-decades-past, I’m so grateful to have found you with me all those years ago…”
What a charming and interesting piece, Meg. Thanks for writing and posting it! I've got a few letters from our college years, but not that many. And now I really wish I'd saved more of them. Best Wishes.
You filled a memory hole for me. I'd forgotten that we both worked for Mrs. Eide.