The Letters Project

One of my major projects is to deal with the mass of paper and mementos.  I have an archivist/hoarder tendency to save everything.  (We won’t discuss the state of my electronic files—that’s Phase 567 of this project!).  I want to deal with the paper, organize it and make it into books that I can enjoy.  I also want to bring some of this past into the present by restoring broken connections, where I can!

 

 

 

At some point in the past, I grouped all the letters and cards together—an unorganized mass of letters, cards, postcards, and things.  The process of putting them in piles has now taken a couple of weeks, and making sure that they are correctly grouped will take a couple of days more.  I had previously organized by date, but this time it was totally clear that they needed to be organized by correspondent. 

These are all not just pre-internet (where I am learning that e-mail is now considered passé!) but pre personal computer.  (The bulk are in the 1972-1981 decade.)  Mostly handwritten, and some extremely lengthy.  A few were typed, but all bear the very clear marks of the maker.  There is so much information on the envelope:  the date, where the sender was living, where I was living. (I do date my own history by address since I have had 12 —a good number for providing markers).  And of course the very distinctive personal voice of the handwriting.  Many letters I recognized immediately from the writing.

Many of the letters are long philosophical thought pieces.  A time gone by.  Precious relics of those who are gone, touching reminders of those who have slipped away.  Rereading creates a memory of the whole time, what it felt like.

Going through the sorting process, already struck with how rich these friendships were, how much was written.  How I have ignored this rich (and mostly happy) part of my past as I have been obsessed with all the drama of the past preceding years (in Sunbury) and the future (trying to figure out what I was going to be when I grew up—a project I am still sort of working on).  What a bad friend I was—I have been so obsessed with myself, my pain, my troubles that I had no attention to pay to others.  And also how many cut offs there are—how that old childhood prohibition against having friends has surfaced again and again and again.  Friendships not nurtured but abandoned:  I have been a user not a cultivator.  That all sounds harsh, but I think I have to face that to be able to have the future be different than the past.

Amazing what a wad of stuff it is.  Of course, I kept everything which is great.  But it is a great wad, an unorganized mass of material.  The physical manifestation of the emotional one:  put aside, purposefully ignored and hidden but still crying out to me of work undone, issues unaddressed, not dealt with.  All the work on decluttering says that things hidden still weight you down—bring it all into the light so you can deal with it, make decisions, move on.

I do have a plan.  I’m going to archive each group of letters, keeping the originals in a safe place, scanning any photographs (not many), and making pages of especially those that are gone.  It is also clear that the next phase involves bringing at least some of these people into the present, if I can.  So many people who were so important that I need to try.  I know that many will not be able to forgive my silence, but I am going to try!  A good stage of this project to undertake in February!