On dragging duffel bags across the desert, moves left undone, and reflecting and refracting the light on each other all the time
September 24, 2021
Dear Eva,
I am sitting here in an unreasonably pouty state because it unexpectedly started pouring rain this afternoon, ruining our bike/nachos/beer plan for kicking off this weekend. Boo, I say, boo! I know B and I do this happy hour ritual nearly every week, but that makes it more special, not less so in my mind. Like our Friday night letter publication, it is another habitual practice that I have come to look forward to every week. Speaking of which, one small thing I was thinking about in relation to the looming end of this epistolary adventure is how I dread/fear losing the extra dose of specialness they imbued upon an already superior day of the week (Fridays). Maybe we can make a point to fold in a Friday publication or exchange of whatever it may be we try next in our creative collab? It is a nice little exclamation point to the end of the workweek.
I am feeling slightly amused about my rush to rip the bandage off when it comes to ending this project. The letters tell me it was a mere five weeks ago when you first raised the possibility of closing out the letters. I previously wrote about your dramatic 180, but it is me that has shifted most dramatically from grief to readiness. As I mentioned when we spoke today, I think this is just me rushing to the end, trying to get away from the uncertainty and into what is known. Right now, I am anticipating the feeling of life without the letters and not knowing what it will feel like (a little bit empty? a little more spacious? neither? both?). Rather than wonder, I just want to get there so I can find out. Here, too, another way in which we are different! And another way I can try to learn from you, absorb some of your stillness. I feel satisfied with our newly carved plan to slow roll our exit, winding them down as the year comes to a close.
I do not actually want this entire letter to be solely about the letters, but I do want to say one more thing. You wrote last week about my words as a gift, how I recognized you were contorting in response to my sadness and wanted to stop you. Thank you for recognizing that, and even more for acknowledging it. I got shivers when I read it because that is precisely what I was trying to do—both express my honest feelings and not use them as an instrument to change the outcome. This is not something I have much experience with! I have always been someone who readily recognizes other people’s needs and wants, but the younger Sarah would have self-edited so you never even had the instinct to change course to protect me. We are all reflecting and refracting the light on each other all the time; too often, we shine it right into each other’s eyes to steer behavior. I am learning to settle into the knowledge that those feelings we shine upon one another are just feelings; they do not need to be acted upon, even while it is important to express them. It feels to me like a tiny triumph to know that the expression of my letter grief (ha) provoked exactly what I feared from you, and yet we pushed through it.
The sky is now clearing, and I am trying to decipher if my body is capable of mustering energy for a short run before B and I head out for a non-bicycling happy hour. It has been a chock full week, both work-wise and family-wise (in addition to a sick kid and covid scare, B’s birthday was this week) and my reserves are low. Luckily, a three day weekend awaits! I plan to spend at least some of it in a vegetable-like state.
Last week, you mentioned happiness-traced-with-envy about my completion of a full draft of my pandemic writing project. Well, since reaching that milestone, it has been sitting untouched on the proverbial shelf. It feels like one of many extra-stuffed duffel bags that I am slowly dragging across the desert. I moved it a few feet and then dropped it to go back and grab others. I will pick it back up when I am able. I am starting to be content with this way of slowly carrying forward my many loads of all stripes and shapes. There is only so much one lady can do, AMIRITE?
--
For reasons unknown, I did not just wrap this letter hours ago. It is now more than 5 hours later, and I have run, happy hour-ed, watched an old Star Wars movie with the kids, and munched on popcorn despite having a belly full of pizza and appetizers. I hope I have not held up the start of your weekend with my unnecessary delay!
Have a wonderful weekend, and let’s start thinking about when we can meet in person this fall. It is just a hop, skip, and a jump, and I would be happy to make the trip or host you in our home. You are our houseguest extraordinaire and are welcome anytime! Have a good one!
Yours,
Sarah
Friday September 24 2021
Dear Sarah,
It is almost 9PM on Friday and I’m just getting started! It’s been that kind of week, but I’m glad to be settling in to write you now after knocking out drafts of a couple of work and volunteer grant writing projects. I am awaiting a crisp Manhattan prepared by M and I am rereading your letter of last week! And I just saw a note pop up on my desktop to let me know that your fresh letter now awaits me in my inbox.
I just took the opportunity to cross a couple of to-dos off my list; the actual projects are done and sent off in their draft form, but putting a line through the items on my list is an extra satisfaction! (We’ve talked regularly about the importance, satisfaction, or relative boringness of getting things done, and I’ll say tonight there was nothing boring about it at all, only relief!)
When I was thinking about the possibility of this week’s letter being our last (!) I started going through our letters from the beginning, with the idea of pulling a line from each of the ones I’d written, to compose a new letter of the snippets that jumped out at me. I opened my letter draft for this week thinking that I’d pulled from at least the first five letters, but I found just three, with a move to draw from the fourth, but I left that move undone! Clearly I will need more than a couple of weeks to peruse 155 (now 156) weeks of letters!
Week 1. This week it is me alone with my ideas, and our past conversations, and my anticipation for the whole thing.
Week 2. Even if I matter now, and even if by some mix of luck and effort I matter hundreds of years from now, there is little likelihood I'll matter thousands of years from now, that anyone will know about me at all. … I find that it can be a relief to be inconsequential.
Week 3. I’m thinking about how my old problems look a little different in a different time zone, different light from different windows, tucked away in differently sized rooms.
Week 4.
Perhaps I will still complete this particular rereading exercise across the whole digital sheaf of our letters, but in the meantime I’ll leave these initial bits in place!
Last week I was delighted to think about your family tradition of turning anything into a tradition; I like that mindset myself: remembering the happy times and taking even the small things as an opportunity to recreate those pleasant moments (I laughed about your family’s regular stop at The Container Store on the way home from family vacation! I too enjoy a (brief) trip to The Container Store!)
I was also really feeling for J in your letter last week; bullies in art class?! I am very sorry to hear this.
I felt a flash of recognition when you said in your letter last week, of the possibility of ending the letters, that It felt—temporarily—like you were saying we should end our friendship. It has felt strangely like we have been navigating the end of a relationship. It has honestly been a long time since I’ve been in a relationship that has officially ended (decades, perhaps?) but the push and pull of our conversations about what happens next with the letters and beyond has definitely had that vibe.
I alluded earlier to the fact that I selfishly did not want this to be our last letter because I feared that it would not be my “best” letter after a long and wordy work day, but faced with the page tonight I also just don’t want the letters to be over yet! I like our new plan of easing our way toward the end of the calendar year. It is a relief to know we’ll keep seeing each other here in black and white for at least a few more months. And after that, the world continues to be our oyster! Happy three-year letter anniversary to you, too!
Did I mention what we’re up to this weekend? Tomorrow morning we’re driving off early to Madison for a day and evening, then Sunday we’ll head to Chicago to check out Theaster Gates’s Stony Island Arts Bank, and then Sunday evening we’ll stay in Milwaukee to see a live show (!) by a band I like called OHMME. Fall is here and I’m ready to hit the road!
Happiest of weekends to you and I’m looking forward to reading your words and talking again soon!
Until then,
Yours,
Eva
P.S. M is cleaning the kitchen while I work on writing my letter, and his weekend-kickoff playlist is making me laugh: Ballroom Blitz just started rippling from the speakers! It’s Friday!