The Letters
It’s not like I didn’t know they were coming.
He’d offered and I’d asked him to go ahead and send them.
And it’s not like I didn’t already know that I was a dork. Then, now, always.
It’s just that I had let slip my mind how much of a dork.
Consider me reminded.
::
When I greeted my mail carrier at the door the other day, she thrust a smallish but heavy box into my hands. As she turned to walk away I puzzled over how I could have written enough letters to weigh so much.
At first I was relieved to discover most of the weight was a box of Mackinac Island fudge, and thought it was gracious of his wife to insist that he send along a treat.
I did not yet realize that the fudge would serve to fortify me against the shrinking effect of staring my inner dork in the face through letter after painful teenage weirdness-filled letter.
An old friend sent me my half of the letters we exchanged three decades ago.
My, how years have wandered on.
Postage was still 13 cents. I remember that.
The pages are yellowed. That’s what happens to papers that “old people” keep.
I was the age of my children.
::
The letters chronicle a three-year period, seventh to ninth grade.
I watched t.v., went to the movies and listened to music.
I have the 8-track Nazareth Hair of the Dog. But I have to stick something in the player with it or the tape drags.
I started many years of braces and headgear.
I’m wearing a tin grin now. He stuck me with a nice little neck strap that could kill King Kong. Speaking of King Kong, did you see it when it was on tv?
We moved from Minneapolis to the middle of South Dakota. It was not an easy transition.
I think this is one of the *****iest place I have ever been in. The house is ok but I’m not sure about everything else. Some of the people are friendly, but not all of them.
I hate my art class.
They don’t have an orchestra.
There is a guy outside mowing our lawn with a sickle-bar mower and baling it all.
We have to take the bus.
For some reason I didn’t mention to him my eighth grade friend who slunk down in the back seat we shared, hiding behind her history book so the bus driver wouldn’t see her drinking peppermint Schnapps and spitting tobacco on the way to school. (This wasn’t normal? What did I know? We were city people and she was a real cowgirl.)
I was reading The Hobbit and The Chronicles of Narnia (for the first of many, many times).
I fought with my siblings, including one incident involving a staircase, a broomstick, and some shoving, punching, tumbling and whacking.
I ate junk food, didn’t throw away my goldfish when it died, hated my Spanish classes, watched a lot of cartoons, complained without ceasing and grew up, at least a little, over those three years.
But I still see a lot of dork.
I also see a lot of who I still am.
I’m glad we live away from everything, so that I can turn everything off, and be alone.
A lot of times I just like to flick on the stereo, lay on my bed and think. I mean, there’s not much time to do much thinking around here, especially without getting bothered, and I really got lots of stuff to think about.
No, I don’t mind if you write “love” if you leave on the “quotation marks.”
Seems like I still really got lots of stuff to think about.
I still like to turn everything off and crawl inside myself.
And I still am a little funny about “love.”
I still want to keep it safely tucked in between quotation marks some days.
::
I read this morning from Scott McKnight’s Forty Days Living the Jesus Creed this reminder about taking the quotes off:
Love orients us toward other people. We need to be oriented toward other people because we are naturally selfish. . . A life where relationships are shaped by the Jesus Creed* involves change and transformation, because it makes room in our life for the life of others.
That means I have to take the quotes off. I have to get up off the bed and turn off my own music and let other people have some room in my life.
Sure, this is part of my core, this desire to shut out the world. Seeing it in myself even so long ago reminds me it’s not some new phenomenon, a new behavior I’ve recently adopted. It’s who I am. But Jesus is saying make some room, orient toward others.
That’s not an easy one for me.
:: ::: ::
* The Jesus Creed: “‘Hear, O Israel: the Lord your God, the Lord is one; you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.” (Mark 12:29-31)
::
Scot McKnight, The Jesus Creed: Loving God, Loving Others and 40 Days Living the Jesus Creed
Photo: yellowed letters from an old friend (sorry, the fudge is gone)
30 plus years and we are just finding out about some of this stuff. I guess you were really “inside” yourself. Your mom and I always thought you and your sister made the transition from city to cow country without a lot of problems. It was your brother that manifested all of the visible issues with the move. I do know you have shared your classmate’s penchant for tobacco and alcohol with us before.
When I was ten (5th grade) our family moved from Chicago to a small (pop 600) farming community 100 miles southwest of the city. It was an adjustment for us as well, but we were younger and probably more able to adapt. I went from a grade school with multiple classes for each grade to a 2 room elementary school with no indoor plumbing. Grades 1 – 4 on the first floor (Bessie Lane), 5 – 8 (George Conde) on the 2nd floor. I only had one classmate in the 5th grade, there were no 6th graders and there were about 7 or 8 7th graders and an equal number of 8th graders.
In those days, we were taught cursive writing, with ink pens. Each desk had a small inkwell built into it and there was a large jug of ink available t the back of the class for refills. One of the 7th graders, Vince G, chewed tobacco in class and spit tobaccy juice into his inkwell. Could be his writing disappeared by the time he handed in his assignments. Then Mr. Conde would heat the paper over a flame like some secret coded espionage message. I seem to recall that you could do that with lemon juice.
Thanks for the update.
Dad
2010/05/12 at 7:04 PM
Funny, these memories. I recall you did your share of moving around as a young guy too. The move to Huron went far better for Laura, much worse for Stephen. I was saddled up somewhere in the middle. I always looked at the Huron move as paving the way for a much smoother transition to high school in Milbank.
Look at us now. All in all it turned out okay for everybody, I think.
2010/05/12 at 7:33 PM
Lyla,
I think it is so neat that you had the opportunity to look back on these letters that you wrote years ago. To see how far you have come and also to see how somethings don’t change.
I must say- you made me giggle about the 8-track and the head gear…that brings back memories of my own.
All kidding aside, I love what you are saying here. You are not the only one that wrestles with “making room for other people” thing. Sometimes, for me, its just safer that way. If I don’t make room for them in the first place…I don’t have to look at the empty space (or feel the void )when they are not around anymore. Don’t get me wrong- I love being around people, however, I tend to stick within my own “core group” of people instead of being open to receive others into the fold. I guess underneath – I am afraid of upsetting the apple cart. As I type this -the only thing that comes to mind now is that what am I missing out on? God could be wanting to use someone to teach or show me something or open my eyes to something and I am not allowing myself to be open to that.
Thank you for your thought provoking words….it has made me think way tooo deep on a Wednesday evening.
Regardless..my friend….and my sister in Christ
I love you…and no I am not adding the quotation marks-lol
P.S. For future reference you may want to disclose all irresponsible and stupid actions you have done as a child to dad before he has to read it in the “paper”.
2010/05/12 at 7:40 PM
Julie, I’m not sure I can remember all the stupid behavior I need to disclose. Some of this came back to me as a surprise (like, I can’t believe it took me four years to get back to the Chronicles of Narnia after reading the first one in the third grade).
You’re right, as usual. God wants us to take off the quotes and open it up.
2010/05/12 at 8:12 PM
Love without quotes – boxed in expectations. Julie – this line “If I don’t make room for them in the first place…I don’t have to look at the empty space (or feel the void )when they are not around anymore.” I resemble this line. Thanks for putting it in words so clear for me.
Lyla – this “let other people have some room in my life.” is where God has me right now. Opening up that room, letting them in, regardless of the possible empty space they may leave.
Thanks for being so open, so transparent!
2010/05/12 at 10:13 PM
It’s risky, Nancy, opening up that space. He says it’s worth it . . .
2010/05/13 at 7:29 AM
Lyla, I’ve never heard of anyone else doing this. I have a box like this, too. It is a weird, naked feeling! What a great post, loving ALL of you so you spill over. Don’t you wish we wrote handwritten things more-and saved them for these moments?
2010/05/12 at 8:11 PM
wow, your friend is quite the pack-rat, huh?
so cool to have this blast from the past!
maybe we should have kids write a letter to themselves
and save it for them to read later.
example:
dear grown-up me, ….
don’t worry about all those wrinkles.
remember how dad always told us to turn out the lights
when we leave a room? don’t do that. it’s annoying.
…something like that.
2010/05/12 at 8:20 PM
Reading this seemed… sacred somehow.
A glimpse into you.
Thank you — for offering the gift. Of you.
2010/05/12 at 9:19 PM
19 cents, I remember, but not 13. What those letters must have meant to have kept them all these years.
I understand the love thing being hard. My problem? I keep trying to put the quotation marks on to protect myself, but they keep disappearing and letting me get hurt again and again. I wonder if God comes behind me with a big eraser…or if I do it myself when my back is turned.
2010/05/12 at 9:57 PM
Kathleen, that would be a wonderful idea, writing more on paper as you do. And nAncY even has some templates for us to use. (nAncY, what will we do with you?)
Ann, thank you. A sacred glimpse into dork, perhaps?
Don’t always like it, Jennifer, but I know He means well with that eraser.
2010/05/12 at 10:12 PM
What a gift, to see yourself in hindsight with real evidence and all! I feel similar dork feelings when I read my journals from jr. high (was I really so angry? and self-centered?) I love the thought of you listening to the stereo, lying on the bed…didn’t we all do that at that age? I remember putting my cassette tape player up close to the radio to record my favorite songs off of Casey Casum’s countdown.
A world away. I never put quotations around Love. That was my problem. Maybe there is a middle ground? Maybe we found it. Love, love, love. And all that good stuff.
2010/05/12 at 10:25 PM
Oh, the countdown. I used to pretend I didn’t pay attention to it. Just like now, I preferred to choose my own music (then via records and 8-track) and not bow to the selections of the DJs…
2010/05/13 at 7:08 AM
I’ve stuck my foot in your iron door a time or ten, stripping away the quote marks and being all dork-like and wretched with you.
So, yeah, I love you. Just sayin’.
P.S. — I’d never send you chocolates, by the way, but Ding Dongs perhaps??? I noticed yesterday that they are on sale at HyVee in Sioux Falls all week. Tent sale, Louise Avenue. There’s still time.
P.S.S. — I not only “loved” this post, I loved this post.
2010/05/12 at 11:03 PM
You would never send me chocolates?
This . . . this is why I leave my love in quotes.
(Thank you for sticking your foot in that door. Love you, Jennifer.)
2010/05/13 at 7:17 AM
Yes, thanks for the peek inside you, Aunt Lyla.
And I’m sure we are all dorks, or were, at some point… and I think I will write a letter to my future self. It would probably be good for me…
2010/05/13 at 7:45 PM
Hey Dani, you write that letter and then send it to me, okay? I’ll keep it for you and send it back at some time when you least expect it, but might just really need it.
Serious, do it.
2010/05/13 at 7:52 PM
Okey Dokey!
2010/05/13 at 8:02 PM