When I ran to the book store a couple of weeks ago, I found a card that caught my eye. Of course, true to form, I can never leave a book store with just a book. I came home with several books, journals and cards. Then I got home and realized, “Oh crap! Both of those extra purchases require me to write!” And I mean with a pen, not send a text or email. I wasn’t sure I remembered how to properly execute cursive. But then, it came flooding back when I picked up my seemingly archaic pen, and there it was, a completed correspondence to my darling friend who probably hasn’t gotten it in the mail yet (since I’m not as good at buying stamps as I am at cursive, apparently. Can’t have you cake and eat it too, people!)
But then I really started to think about it, how could letters NOT be a huge part of my life? My great grandmother’s books consist of her actual letters written to friends. My grandmother’s trunk is full of cards sent and received by her, and writings of all sorts. My mother is a gifted and opinionated writer, especially when she’s fired up and used to write letters to the editor of our papers. And in addition to these factors, who didn’t LOVE getting a letter in the mail as a kid. You know, before bills and junk mail started coming as well. My son asks me at least three times a week if there’s any mail for him, and when there actually is, he does a happy dance. I also began to think about all of the great letters that have survived all this time and have given us great historical details as well as romantic inspiration. How powerful the written word can be! I verbally can’t put two words together when I’m emotionally charged, but I can certainly sit down and write a scathing or loving letter. Here’s a small sampling of some favorite quotes about letters and from actual letters:
“Friends will write me letters. They run out of room on the front of the letter. They write "over" on the bottom of the letter. Like I'm that much of a moron. Like I need that there. Because if it wasn't there, I'd get to the bottom of the page: "And so Kathy and I went shopping and we..." That's the craziest thing! I don't know why she would just end it that way.” ~Ellen DeGeneres
“My songs are just little letters to me.” ~Ani Difranco (whom I love, on a side note!)
My very favorite love letter, the basis of the movie “Immortal Beloved”, which is centered on a love letter written by Beethoven to his beloved. This, in turn, created a mystery as to who she was because no one knew him to have a beloved during his last years. He had many women, that is well documented, but clearly one captured his heart above all others. My favorite is his sign off: “Oh continue to love me - never misjudge the most faithful heart of your beloved. ever thine, ever mine, ever ours” ~Your faithful Ludwig
And of course, a letter from my great grandmother, who talks about her life once she arrived in Wyoming, and cultivating the land with just help from Jerrine (my grandmom). This is an excerpt from "Letters of a Woman Homesteader":
“I never did like to theorize, and so this year I set out to prove that a woman could ranch if she wanted to. We like to grow potatoes on new ground, that is, newly cleared land on which no crop has been grown. Few weeds grow on new land, so it makes less work. So I selected my potato-patch, and the man ploughed it, although I could have done that if Clyde would have let me. I cut the potatoes, Jerrine helped, and we dropped them in the rows. The man covered them, and that ends the man's part.
By that time the garden ground was ready, so I planted the garden. I had almost an acre in vegetables. I irrigated and I cultivated it myself. We had all the vegetables we could possibly use, and now Jerrine and I have put in our cellar full, and this is what we have: one large bin of potatoes (more than two tons), half a ton of carrots, a large bin of beets, one of turnips, one of onions, one of parsnips, and on the other side of the cellar we have more than one hundred heads of cabbage. I have experimented and found a kind of squash that can be raised here, and that the ripe ones keep well and make good pies; also that the young tender ones make splendid pickles, quite equal to cucumbers. I was glad to stumble on to that, because pickles are hard to manufacture when you have nothing to work with. Now I have plenty. They told me when I came that I could not even raise common beans, but I tried and succeeded. And also I raised lots of green tomatoes, and, as we like them preserved, I made them all up that way. Experimenting along another line, I found that I could make catchup, as delicious as that of tomatoes, of gooseberries. I made it exactly the same as I do the tomatoes and I am delighted. Gooseberries were very fine and very plentiful this year, so I put up a great many. I milked ten cows twice a day all summer; have sold enough butter to pay for a year's supply of flour and gasoline. We use a gasoline lamp. I have raised enough chickens to completely renew my flock, and all we wanted to eat, and have some fryers to go into the winter with. I have enough turkeys for all of our birthdays and holidays. I raised a great many flowers and I worked several days in the field. In all I have told about I have had no help but Jerrine. Clyde's mother spends each summer with us, and she helped me with the cooking and the babies.
Many of my neighbors did better than I did, although I know many town people would doubt my doing so much, but I did it. I have tried every kind of work this ranch affords, and I can do any of it. Of course I am extra strong, but those who try know that strength and knowledge come with doing. I just love to experiment, to work, and to prove out things, so that ranch life and "roughing it" just suit me.” ~ E.P. Stewart
And right there, my friends, is a prime example of letter that can convey so much. When I begin to get frustrated with my garden, with my own little homestead, with raising children or with life in general, it’s easy for me to pick up this book and immediately identify with my great grandmother and her challenges and frustrations. And then I’m reminded of the fortitude that I have in my history and present life, in my grandparents and parents and friends. In fact, I’m going to take time tonight to sit down and write a note on those pretty little cards to those people, just to thank them for reminding me of it. I hope you do as well. It gives someone something you can’t get via text or email. HOPE and LOVE on paper as written in your own personal script, that you can reread a million times over for years to come. I can’t think of a better gift!
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