Page 17 - WTP VOl. XIII #2

Dogs, on the other hand, abound. Dogs wander through letters as they wander through households, and more commonly in past decades, neighbour- hoods. There are the occasional cats, and even a goldfish. In return, I would share stories of the pigs we raised, which I remember fondly.
E, F, G
Envelopes are sometimes kept with their letters, now and then because of a special stamp, or sketches my sisters or brother might have drawn on the back. For those of us who are short of cash, and paper, sometimes a sentence or two, or a PS, spill out onto the envelope.
The expectation of a reply is most always implied, and yet it baffles me how so many exchanges were left hanging. How did those disconnections occur? Who missed a letter, or moved and forgot to provide an address, or simply got derailed by things?
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Frittata comes up only once, in a letter from my mother.
But forgiving (and forgetting) are themes of so many letters, among friends and family both. One special friend from my Whitefish years (between university and marriage), tells me, in a seven-page letter, that she’s sorry not to have written for so long, despite how she “loves and cherishes” me. She tells me how she’s not eating, and sometimes breaks into tears for no reason. And yet she’s asking me to for- give her for not coming to visit us at Christmas. We would sustain that friendship for years, despite so many miles, marriages, jobs, births, and deaths.
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Gifts are bountiful, I realized from these accounts, criss-crossing the continent in every direction. Never mind that there’s so many accounts of finan- cial struggle, of penny-pinching and scrounging. In one long letter from Mom, she’s thanking us for gifts we’ve sent, and telling me of things she’s working on, or sending. Ever pragmatic, she talks about how she’s able to afford things just now, and managing rent and bills. She thanks me for olive oil we sent (or left?), and shares how she cried listening to a cassette tape I mailed (of the kids practicing their festival performances). The gift exchanges go back and forth eternally. Another letter tells me how she’s sending sneakers one of the boys has left be- hind, along with “a bunch of trinkets that Orris had around the house”—and key chains for all three:
“they make great zipper pulls.” In another letter, she thanks me for “the Avon flashlight,” and asks how I liked the fruit peeler.
H, I, J, K
Handwriting is, on every page, a reminder of a disap- pearing skill. There are the letters from my father, from when he was in prison in the swirl of chaos dur- ing my teen years. In loopy sloping handwriting, often with a drawing in the upper corner, Dad’s letters are artful, but hard to take in. I will burn most, but keep two. Half of the letters from him, I’m surprised to notice, are addressed to my younger sister (variously spelled Kristi, Christi, Christie). I wonder if I ever showed them to her. Or did I try to spare her the pain of them? I have no idea. His letters always express concern for us, for driving carefully, staying well—as if he were a normal caring parent. (And maybe, in his own way, he was—caring, that is.)
My older sister Sharon will continue mailing letters, resisting email long after most of us succumb. She retains her beautiful handwriting—while I can barely manage my signature in script.
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Ink is yet another interesting aspect of these letters. At first the content is so overpowering that I hardly notice the ink, or paper, or script. These are elements of the whole technology of letter writing. Some let- ters are in green ink; one, in a now barely discernible yellowish tone, perhaps once brown, or bronze. A few are in pencil (my brother’s earliest letters). One of
my sister Christie’s letters is nearly illegible, from a pen running dry. Artistic, she always would, I imagine, have drawing tools on hand, but in this season seems stuck with a single pen, running dry. (As for me, on the other hand, while wholly lacking artistic talent,
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