Dear X,
It’s late at night, and I begin this letter by slipping into those moments right before I knew you. Thus I experience once again the mysterious shock of first seeing you. Later I will see the envelope and imagine its destination. It’s so rare to hold a letter these days! I hope you find the news important and good.
Earlier tonight I stood annually in C.’s kitchen, already dreading the solstice ritual where we’re supposed to read and then burn little scraps of paper on which we have written either the things we want or things we no longer need, I can never remember. Until this year it had never seemed to matter.
Last year I ended up standing before the fireplace holding two little pieces of napkin on which I had written these phrases: ‘stop subletting’ and ‘regulate feeling like panda feeling’. As my moment came closer I watched several people hold in their trembling hands the little bits of what they hoped for or hoped would no longer return before throwing them into the fire and crying.
Have you ever felt like an awful blue tuxedo someone rented because it seemed so hilarious at the time? How sad, now they have nothing else but you to wear to the celebration. That’s just one of the many feelings I’d like to be able to throw not into the fire but someplace just far enough from myself to forget it, and just close enough to instantly retrieve.
This year I found myself before the shelf upon which rests a collection of porcelain elves about the size of my thumb. Idly picking up one particular chipped figure I saw how eerily it resembled my high school geometry teacher. With a feeling of great excitement I turned, felt the sharp disappointment there was no one anywhere near me who cared, and caught or was caught by the sight of you sitting on a couch, holding a glass with a face painted on it.
I’m not what people would call a ‘visual person’. In fact, I’m one of those people who likes the names of flowers so much he can’t remember which ones they actually are. You were talking to someone who seemed to be but was not wearing a hat pulled down around his eyes, and as you turned slightly, below your short dark hair one side of your face was no longer shaded but lit pretty clearly by a lamp. I saw one tiny freckle just above the side of your mouth, which turned up just the slightest bit, I wouldn’t call it a smile.
I could see it so clearly. All last year I was an artificial lake! Sure I had the occasional requisite live electrical cable dropped into me, but mostly I sat in the sun, full of little nameless waves and cheerful paddle-boats. So many missed chances to blunder. My father told me the problem with us is we are in love with being in love with love. My sister insisted I will just like she and my brother one day eventually learn to follow that feeling of doubt wherever it leads. It’s a miracle our people have procreated at all. Yet we persist.
Then it was time to move into the living room. I kept pretending to look for something to write with, trying hard not to watch you laughing and passing a pen back and forth among your friends. When I looked down I saw one of those scraps of paper someone must have dropped. When my turn came I unfolded it and saw someone had written ‘I wish I could draw’; without thinking I said ‘I see need is no longer only for children’ and threw it into the fire.
Many things happened until we met, sort of, finally at the end of the night. You may remember me as tallish by the door. I made a vague motion with my hands like I had either released and immediately begun trying to retrieve something invisible and weightless, or had started to help you with your coat, which I did, clumsily looking down at you from what seemed like an exciting and terrifying altitude. You said your name and turned and did not see me write it on my hand.
A girl just walked down my hallway, singing. The radio mutters along about the president. Do you think he will for once at last defy his advisors and decide against the next war? Maybe by the time you have read and put down this letter we will already know, and we will attend instead of a demonstration a calm victory celebration that almost exactly resembles an ordinary evening, just a little more full of the great unguarded anonymous affection even the most selfish of us remain unexpectedly capable of.
Someone once said to give a gift is the most selfish act of all. That person was wise but not a great house guest. In the spirit of great beginnings I’d like to bring you something you never will need. Not even a potion that does nothing, nor a translucent umbrella you can carry to work on overcast days to protect your freckles from the clouds, nor a tiny golden talking boat, no bigger than the palm of your hand.
So besides the paper on which these words are written I humbly enclose nothing at all. Not even my great desire to see you. Just the feeling that remains after you are given the pleasure of being given nothing, along with the beautiful electric fear of choosing your own particular way of locating someone you so far know only a few things about, and of deciding those reasons are more than enough.