Category: 100 days of letters

Dear Lightning that Struck in Quincy, MA Sometime in 1989, or 1990,

I guess this letter is actually a little bit hypothetical because… well, I’ll be honest: I don’t know if you exist.

My friend (She was once my best friend, my only friend. She was my very first friend, if you don’t count that kid from my preschool, which I kind of don’t, only because I don’t remember his name.) claimed that you hit her. So you’ve always been a big part of my memory, Lightning, and I always thought of you with wonder and with fear. She was frazzled, that was for sure. She said she had been walking with her umbrella across a bridge (this was much later in our friendship, when we were now “childhood friends” and visited each other only occasionally, and she was old enough to have a part-time job that she walked to and from, in the rain sometimes, apparently) when you struck, pausing her walk home, frizzing her hair, shaking her balance, and scattering her thoughts to the stormy wind. When she arrived at the house she was fussed over, given water, a chair, a chance to tell her story.

You were her story.

The thing is this: was I there or did she tell me about it later? I can’t remember. Did she actually tell me that she had been hit by lightning twice and that the third time a person was hit by lightning it was likely to kill them? Can you weigh in on that theory? And of course, the real thing, the thing I started this letter with, is actually this: did you happen?

I could ask her (we are now only Facebook friends, so it might be weird) but I probably won’t. She was always more grownup than I was – in actual years but also in life years – and I can imagine her response to that question.

Besides, maybe I don’t want to know.

-e.

Dear Cream Rotary Telephone,

You fancy thing, you.

Pretentious? Maybe. It took forever to dial a number. I always thought that you were the kind of phone that would be in Silk Stalkings (a fantastic police show set in Miami – look it up). A very sophisticated lady would have you in her entirely cream colored penthouse apartment.

I really liked the way you clicked – like a prescient shudder – just before the first ring of an incoming call. I liked the way that let me show off to people, yelling “the phone is going to ring” just as the first ring happened. Yes, I do realize it’s not nearly as cool as I thought it was at the time. Sue me.

-e.

To the Purple Wool Sweater I Bought from Goodwill in 1998,

I just want to tell you how very much I loved you. The fact that you were the only sweater I brought for our school’s overnight hike into the Norwegian woods in late fall – and that you were actually still damp from washing when I put you on my body for said hike – says it all, I think. You were exactly the kind of thing a stylish, eco friendly, international gal like myself would wear, and I thank the stars I found you.

You never smelled quite right after that trip though. Possibly my fault.

(Why do I end so many of these letters with) sorry and thank you,

-e.

To the Wollaston T Station,

Your air was stale and smelled bad, like all T Stations. If buildings could be greasy, like an unwashed body, you would be greasy. There were about two months out of every year that the weather on the platform was habitable. And every time I walked through your lobby I remembered my friend’s Dad’s song about taking a piss outside.

But still, you were a harbor. A shortish walk from my house. A place from which to begin. A safe place to return.

God, though, those pay phones.

Thank you. Be well.

-e.

Dear Dr. Seuss Tree,

God, you were persistent. And strange. Someone had cut you down before we arrived and I’m guessing somebody is still cutting you down now. We tried to let you grow, to see what you would become. That’s when my sister named you. You did, indeed, look like something from one of Dr. Seuss’s books, all pompomy and top heavy.

I’m glad I don’t have to deal with you anymore.

Goodbye,

-e.

Dear Patio,

You never came to be. But the strength of your hold in my imagination is as if I had – actually – cleared out the space behind the garage and had laid the bricks down with my two young but strong hands. As if we had actually sat on your narrow but strong shoulders and supped. Or drank. Or talked. As if music had, actually, been piped from speakers to caress the air above your head.

Ah, well. It was a first house. A practice place. A place to learn from mistakes and choose a paint color that made the dining room look like an ice cream parlor and follow an exterminator/heating specialist/plumber around with clenched teeth saying “how bad is it?” It was a place to rip out the carpet drenched with cat and rat piss and pause on the front steps pulling fresh air into clogged lungs and gaze out behind the garage to say, “soon, one day.” There is something important about the dreams that get let go. Even the simple ones. Even the small ones. Released like balloons. Or the dregs of a cup you are done drinking from.

And so if you didn’t come to be, Patio, the dream of you was important as well. Please know that.

-e.

Dear Bird Sanctuary aka The Bog,

My parents were so confused when I came home at 6 years old to tell them my friend and I had spent the afternoon at the Bird Sanctuary.

But then sometimes we also called you The Bog.

I know now that you were really just an empty lot in the neighborhood. But to a handful of little kids on bikes, you were a whole world.

Thank you,

-e.

Dear Weeping Willow Tree I Wrote That Poem About,

I’ve been trying to remember and I can’t seem to – where do you live? Could you share your address? Somewhere in Massachusetts. I want to say a college campus? A different kind of school? Maybe it’s one of those fancy day schools New England has tucked away places.

I know there are other willows around. I know what you’re thinking – go find one of them to sit under and write about. That makes sense. But here’s the thing: when I visited you, I was a kid, around the age my daughter is now and while I was on that field trip or whatever it was to WHEREVER IT IS YOU LIVE I did the assignment to write a poem about you and I didn’t really think about it, I was just in the zone and I used all the words that used to live in my head along with my thoughts without incident and the artsy teacher I’d never met before with all her swishy layers came up and kissed me on the forehead and I’ve lost that, I’ve lost that zone and I don’t think that zone can be found under just any old stupid tree.

So can I please come visit you? I will be quiet. I won’t cry too much. I won’t try to steal anything you have. I just want to find what I lost.

Please.

-e.

Dear Tapestry I Found at Urban Outfitters,

It is funny I am writing to you when I could just go downstairs and talk to you in person, but here we are. Sometimes love needs to be written down in a proper love letter.

You were, you are, you always will be perfection. Your colors, your pattern, your texture, your drape, your smell (how do you still smell vaguely like incense, you witchy thing?) – everything I’ve always wanted in a piece of fabric.

First you were a covering for my bed my freshman year at college. Then you were roman shades for our bedroom in the apartment where we became a family of three. Now, you are in my sewing room, awaiting your next iteration. But always, still, you are the best fabric choice I ever made. I don’t think I can adequately describe the calm I feel when you’re around. The rightness of you. You were mass produced and available at Urban Outfitters stores throughout the country in 1994? I guess so. But the fact that you and I were meant to be together and that my life is better for the fact that you are in it – I’ve never doubted it.

-e.

Dear Dark Green “Silk” I Bought as a Remnant,

Were you green or were you black, the sales lady at the notions store wanted to know when I was looking for buttons to match you. The darkest green, obviously, with tiny white diamonds scattered across like stars. But your shade was inky, for sure, and the slight iridescence made you all the more mysterious.

That long skirt I sewed you into was, actually, the only possible thing I think you could have been – what else, really? An ankle-length, broody, odd skirt with (I believe) no zipper because the gathers at the waist were voluminous enough to hide the opening. Voluminous gathers but then – do you remember? the bottom wasn’t wide enough. Remember when I tried to jump that puddle and fell when your hem stopped my ankle? Were you as embarrassed as I was? I hope not. You were innocent.

I didn’t wear you after that, did I?

Here’s the thing: thank you. Thank you for all the possibility you possessed and sent like a charge through my hands when I first held you. Does the possibility of a thing go away once it is cut, sewn, worn, and discarded? Or does it get recycled, like organic matter or energy, back into the air, the soil, the next generation of plants, animals and ideas?

I think the latter. I still remember holding you when I stood at the button counter, surveying my options, imagining our future together.

-e.