Category: 100 days of letters

Dear Scent Record Player,

You were an odd, messy thing. Another in a long line of really strange Christmas gifts from my aunt and uncle. Your scents were trapped in goo that were packaged in these black disks that looked like records and then you put them in the “player” which was plugged in and heated and then the chosen scent sort of … oozed through the air. It was awful. But my sister and I were fairly fascinated for a few minutes.

What I didn’t realize then but think is probably true: our aunt and uncle were interesting people. And probably pretty funny. But all the people who might have been able to verify that are dead. Or at least not answering my emails.

We always have our memories, though, don’t we? Thanks for being so dang weird.

-e.

Dear Christmas Ornament from That Ornament Party I Went to When I Was Little,

What do you look like, Christmas Ornament? Which one are you? Are you the little bear riding a red tricycle? Are you the ornate doll with a string from your back? I can’t remember. I don’t know who threw that party or why I was there. I remember the house was large and dim with a lot of dark wood and a big Christmas tree studded with ornaments. And when we left, we each got to take one home. I remember a woman (how did we know her?) who was very intense about my choice. I remember thinking it was important that I pretend to care about my choice. Everything was very hushed and the charm felt very orchestrated, though something tells me the host was imagining something more along the lines of something Fezziwig had whirled together.

Anyway. Your adoption story has a small foothold in my memory, even if your shape and personality do not.

Merry Christmas!

-e.

Dear Town Near Six Flags That We Ended Up Staying In For Three Days When My Friend’s Car Broke Down,

You are a contradiction: a place so articulate and well-formed that you have the stark outlines of a movie set; a place so strange and singular that sometimes I forget I even know you. In fact I don’t remember your location. Or your name.

If there had been anything to gain from tricking three college students who had gotten stranded by driving a car with a busted radiator through the baking hot “safari” park of a Six Flags – I would have believed you were dragged together by carpenters and casting directors as part of an elaborate hoax. The single taxi in town, the one payphone, the one hotel with one room left and the diner across the street that was the only place to eat, the woman who checked us into the hotel and then, an hour later, took our order at the diner, the mechanic that kept telling us it would be “one more day” – everyone’s deadpan expressions and listless movements made us feel like we were stars in a zombie movie and the director was going to yell “action” any second.

I hate amusement parks. I could say it was a dumb plan and that I was pressured into going in the first place. But it isn’t nice to speak ill of the dead. So all I can say is that it was ill-fated.

My friend put me on a bus back to school. She and her boyfriend broke up after I left. Was it your fault, Town Near Six Flags? Maybe not. But I’m not entirely ruling it out.

-e.

Dear Pier 1 in the Building with the Movie Theatre, the Ice Cream Place and the DMV in my Hometown,

We were really there for the movies and the ice cream – it was just about the only thing to do on a Friday or Saturday night before we could drive, our parents dropping us off outside and picking us up again three hours later – but for me you were a magical, wonderful bonus. A few extra minutes before the movie and we could walk through, touching all the small toys and the bins of cloth shoes and the bright, soft dresses. That smell! So much rattan.

You made far off places seem attainable. I imagined when I was an adult I would furnish my entire home with wicker papasan chairs and I would lounge in them wearing batik baby doll dresses. In this dream I was an incense scented, tea drinking, vaguely shaped dreamer. It was lovely to think about.

I read yesterday that all the Pier 1 stores are closing. It’s a little sad, but not really. They are no longer like you, Pier 1. They are more expensive, somehow more cluttered and also more bland. All about holiday-themed tabletops. I’m not into it.

Stepping through your doors was like entering a different world. You never would have guessed the mean ladies of the DMV were just downstairs.

-e.

Dear Corner Store with the Jars of Nickel Candy,

I get why you didn’t like us (or I guess more specifically your owners didn’t like us, though it felt like you yourself didn’t want us there, Corner Store) because we were hordes of sugar-mad middle schoolers ravaging your jars for handfuls of bazooka gum and sugar daddys and bonkers and necco wafers under the watchful, hateful eyes of the old person behind the counter while our school bags waited for us by the door. We were pushy and probably rude and probably a lot of kids tried stealing (though not me).

What I guess I thought you should know, Corner Store, was that we were so awful because we were high on our power. Going to middle school, a fistful of change smelling like how the monkey bars used to make our hands smell – but we were too old now for monkey bars. We had a few cents and the freedom to go into a store and spend it – and we wanted to spend it on cheap, sticky candy and do so even though we knew that the shopkeeper hated it and our parents weren’t too thrilled about it either. Independence!

It felt so grownup to me, shopping your wares, Corner Store. There was something so urban about you and old-timey too. I imagined I was my dad, running to the store for Grandma in 1950’s Boston. And later, when I read A Tree Grows In Brooklyn, you were Cheap Charlie’s and Gimpy’s in one.

Thanks for all the candy,

-e.

Dear English Teacher’s Lounge at My High School,

You were the place I felt closest to the teachers of my favorite subject. I felt at almost home with you, in the moments before and after school, asking for help on an essay or working on the school newspaper.

You would think that would have been the start, and that when I went to college and majored in English I would have found homes in the offices of my professors. But despite being roomed in old houses, up carpeted stairs to small, book-crowded spaces – those places were cold and unwelcoming to me.

Miss you,

-e.

Dear Lake in New Hampshire Where Our Family Friends Had that Huge Beautiful House, and the Dock, and the Boat, and Did They Also Own You, Lake?

Not that anyone could really own you, Lake, you were unownable. But still. The ownership they seemed to feel for everything they surveyed was dizzying. They were our Gatsbys. You were their Manhasset Bay.

With you was the first and last time I waterskied. I felt as if I were auditioning for a more glamorous life and that I had passed – barely – but would need more practice to truly be able to inhabit it. Thank you for opening your arms to me as I fell, receiving me gently.

-e.

Dear Hill at the End of That Road Race My Dad Ran in the ’80s,

Every road race I run is that one and every hill I run is you.

-e.

Dear Bib Dress that I Sewed Out of Green RIT-dyed Fabric,

You looked like a cross between a World War II-era nurse’s apron and a girl scout uniform. You were strange. Oh, but the evenness of that green dye! And the feel of the fabric – it was the perfect drape. Also you fit really well. For one hot second after I put you on I felt as if I had done it – I had made the perfect dress.

I think what you taught me, Bib Dress, is that until I get an idea out of my head it is going to haunt me forever. Also that I have some pretty weird ideas.

-e.