Life Letters ( Part 1 of 3)

         

  

There were many letters written during my long marriage. Three stand out in my memory. They are reminiscence of the full circle of the relationship itself. The letters captured the enchantment of the beginning, the frustration of the middle and the finality of the end.  

  During the first year of my marriage, I decided to write a lifetime of love letters to my husband. I considered each letter a work of art that would make a wonderful collection at the end of what would be our long union. So I went out to Harvard square in search of wonderful paper. We were very young and student poor because we were both still in college. A coin jar served as our entertainment fund, and I emptied half

of it for this special gift. Then I went in search of luxurious paper. I found a store in the heart of Harvard Square. It was a combination used book store, consignment art store, and museum of great stationery. The paper had been designed and hand painted by equally broke students.  I felt my way through the paper, touching, smelling, and staring, at every sheet.  I wanted something pale and translucent, but I also wanted a touch of color.  In fact, I wanted the paper to be almost dream-like. Finally, I came upon some ultra-thin onion paper. Hand painted in oils with wildflowers around the edges, it was perfect.

  Next I found the perfect pen. It was a mock quill that discharged a river of deep red ink the moment the point touched paper. Sitting outside in Harvard Yard on that late fall day; I started writing. I wrote of beginnings and youth. I filled paragraphs about our young love and the baby on the way. Of the promise of all that was yet to come and the happy fatigue of the hard work that was getting us there. I wrote about all that I loved about my husband; his spontaneity, his drive, his intensity. Perhaps it was the church bells ringing, or the way the autumn sun made beautiful shadows on my paper.  Maybe it was simply hormones. Whatever the reason, tears dropped on the paper one by one.  Once wet, some of the ink formed beautiful butterfly like patterns. I thought about starting over but I realized that joyful tears would be part of any letter I wrote that day.  I filled the envelope with the rose petals of a single rose I purchased from a nearby flower shop. In my haste to finish before dark, I somehow managed to crush some of the petals into the still damp paper.

 Decades later, I remember how surprised my husband was to receive the letter after dinner that night. I can still picture how the petals rained down on the table and made their way into his water, But more than anything else, I remember the smell of the rose that seemed to have made its way into the pores of the paper. As he smiled, the scent flowed over both of us. The aroma of roses would linger on the paper for years to come. The stars seemed to align with the fact that this first letter,written before time could leave open wounds and scars, was one blessed by roses and tears.