On words passed to one another, what happens when we cling, and gifting ourselves an ending so that we can begin again
December 30, 2021
Dear Eva,
It’s the end of an era! I am pleased with the convergence of our last letters and the turnover of the calendar year. One last reflection in this epistolary form before new forms must take their place.
Today, I unexpectedly snatched a patch of solitude during this bustling holiday time, and I am seizing the moment! I picked up an extra naughty (whole milk) cafe mocha in anticipation. (B and I are following your Dry and Sugar-free January footsteps this year, so I am getting it in while I can.)
Lately, I have been doing a lot of thinking about how to use the 100 Creative Days format in the new year. I have done a lot of fragment-esque writing and doodling these past few years, and I feel like I am ready for something different—something with a longer arc, a deeper dive. I have settled on using the 100 Days to forage through what we have made in this heap of 170 letters. Every day, I will read at least one letter pair and pluck out a word, phrase, sentence, or excerpt that calls to me, and do some pondering about the meta aspects of this collective work. Last week, I told my therapist that this endeavor was drawing to a close. She asked, “What have you learned from doing it?” This is a big question, one that I believe deserves 100 days of steady contemplation.
I have a few answers already. I have learned—
The power of chronicling, making time and emotions visible to ourselves
The power of attention and care, expressing real curiosity for what another human has to say
The power of ritual, converting art and sense-making into a rhythm or undercurrent means it stitches into your life in a different, more sturdy way
Proof that the internet can be generative, that we can find connection through the ether in the kind ways we were promised when the Web was young.
But there is so much more stored in the depths of this stack of letters. It seems a fitting end, or rather a fitting next step, to go on an exploration of the words we passed to one another these past 3+ years.
I realize I have spent all of my creative energy these past several years on projects that were, strictly speaking, for someone else, even though I, of course, got much from them myself. The mini-memoir for my kids, the project for my niece, these letters to you. This external motivation in the form of someone (or someones) I love was exactly what I needed to spur me to the page. Now, as I set into 2022, I think I am ready for the next chapter. I think I am ready to make art for me.
Through this project, we gave each other care, attention, deep curiosity. This is rare, extraordinary even. But this is not the only way. Maybe this is the grand lesson of the letters (I have warned you repeatedly that I always want to sum things up) — we can find something wondrous and we can let it go willingly, even perhaps with a bit of pleasure because we can see (in fact, have a lifetime of experience as evidence) that there are ways to find these sustaining, joyful feelings in unanticipated and unimagined ways and contexts. My dad would always talk about this concept in the context of my various moves to new parts of the country in my young adult life. He would say that every new move of mine brought new favorite restaurants for them to hit up every visit, new favorite haunts to go back to, new experiences to cherish. I think he was telling himself just as much as he was telling me and my mom.
When we cling, we squeeze the sand right out from our hands. I will be learning this all my life.
Thank you, Eva, for these past 170 weeks. These letters changed me. What a marvelous gift!
With love,
Your friend and forever penpal,
Sarah
Thursday December 30 and Friday December 31 2021
Dear Sarah,
In my first letter to you I said, this week it is me alone with my ideas, and our past conversations, and my anticipation for the whole thing.
We were writing with nothing yet on the page to respond to, only our own thoughts to kick off our adventure.
Now, in our last letters to each other as part of this particular project, we are each flying off the jump on our own, without the anticipation of a dedicated response (though this time we are also buoyed up by many moons of each others’ thoughts riding alongside our own). But perhaps there’s a way in which that’s how it’s been all along; our letters each week didn’t inherently demand a response to all details, just as in every conversation we invariably leave some stones unturned. To examine each proposition of a statement or a question would leave no room for the fluidity of ideas, the carving of personal paths through the shared space of our relationships.
My spirit at the moment — comfy on my in-laws’ couch and with a minimal portion of my belongings in my presence, still away from my own home and my stacks of this and that — features a fresh desire to clear things out, to spend time swabbing the decks as this year begins, to really recalibrate my relationship with my objects and all the things I hold onto, and my intentions for them; to free up space where I’ve been keeping all options on the table; making choices to make space.
I haven’t minded lingering in this goodbye state, as you said last week. There may be no such thing as closure, but there are still endings. The letters will be done (for the time being) but they will continue to exist, and the ripple effects of having written and read them over these many weeks will also continue to manifest. I am not currently sad that the letters will be ending, but I predict sad feelings will reveal themselves in time — whether that’s next week on the occasion of our first letterless Friday in years, or next month, or this summer, when I am sitting outside on a warm evening, reading a book and drinking a cider and thinking thoughts I might have said would be perfect for folding into a letter to you, then realizing there is no letter in which to tuck those thoughts. But I’ll still be sure to capture those thoughts, and we will still be present for each other; perhaps we’ll find that we can be relaxed with our rules and invite periodic redux editions of our exchange. I say all opportunities are open to us! This is an ending of our own making.
Gathering inspiration from our friend J, I have lately been dabbling in reading more about my natal chart and my horoscope(s) beyond my sun sign. After catching a well-timed Creative Independent interview with Alice Sparkly Kat, I have been following their work on instagram and online, and I read this consideration of Capricorns while thinking of you: On Not Being a Stereotypical Capricorn. It included some essences that felt resonant with how I know you: …This is why, I think, Capricorns love to discard things so openly. It’s one of the only times they find freedom. They throw away a book once they’re done reading. They get rid of the flowers drying on their dresser once they’re finished. They throw away old sweaters and knickknacks. They don’t keep old furniture around once it starts getting in the way. It’s like they’re chasing the void of fresh snow. They throw things away because they understand that the self must be diminished before it is shaped. … Capricorn isn’t so rigid after all. They’re ready for big changes because they’re aware that none of us live forever.
We don’t have to discard the letters, thankfully, but we can clear some space now for the next thing(s). I will accept your Peloton instructor’s advice that Anything worth doing has a beginning, a middle, and an end, and I will add that we are gifting ourselves an ending so that we can begin again!
Yesterday I wrote: Your letter is waiting in my inbox, and yet it is too early to read it; I suppose I could read your letter tonight if I finished mine tonight, and I could prepare the letter post so that it would go up tomorrow, but I feel like I should wait until tomorrow to read your last letter alongside mine, and to put them up! Now I’m having a hard time finishing and yet it is time! It won’t be closure, precisely, but an end nonetheless.
Here we are on New Year’s Eve. What do you think: is New Year's Eve better than New Year's Day? On the last day of the year, we are on the cusp of what is new; on the first day of the year, the new year is happening. Of course, a year is not a uniform chunk of time, except that we make it so with our calendar system; I’ll celebrate the beginning of the new astrological year in March, and my personal new year in April; I’ll work on bringing myself back around to observing my days and hours and minutes as units of time, always new. You are just about a solstice baby, and just about a new year’s baby; I wonder what it feels like to have your personal year so closely woven with our calendar year? I’m sure I’ve asked you along the way… but have I? You won’t respond to these questions in letter form but I’ll leave them here for you anyway!
Wishing you and yours a very happy New Year’s Eve and New Year, and I’m looking forward to keeping our ideas swirling back and forth even off these pages!
Until soon!
Yours, with much love,
Eva