I awoke this morning to find a suspicious package sitting outside my stoop addressed to yours truly. I investigated it: sent via the post with no return address. I immediately suspected that it was from you! That you had finally found some time to respond to my letters and had sent me a souvenir or two, a shrunken head or maybe a taste of your manuscript. I dashed up the stairs and proceeded to eviscerate the package.
From the package emerged something I'd lost a long time ago and assumed that I'd never see again: a volume of my journal. I lost it somewhere in Grand Central Station a number of years ago. I had been writing in it for about 3 months, roughly half of it was filled. I opened it slowly. Inside was a note. In an awkward, angular, childish hand was written: "Here, you need this more than me."
I turned the note over and flipped through the pages of the book. There was nothing else, not a clue. I brought the spin to my nose and inhaled slowly. There was a dry, bitter taste, and the slight aroma of cigar smoke.
Had the finder become a reader? I had to assume so. His statement, while cryptic, was clearly meaningful. What did my reader think of me? Well, certainly not too highly. Apparently I "need" the journal back. I was getting on just fine without it, thank you very much. But it set me to wondering what my journal sounds like with just the words, not the memories. I tried an experiment: I typed up a few pages of my journal in the hopes that seeing them in a measured, uniform font on a screen and not in my own hand, mingled with memories, would lead me to some objectivity.
Here's an example:
"At work today I wrote the letter to Miss Weaver. The only thing left to do is send it. Will I have the nerve? I imagine her response will be quite positive-- I imagine her keeping the letter for the rest of her life, never discarding it. Quite sanctimonious of me.
Writing the letter was stressful. I wanted it in my own hand, not typed or emailed, but I also needed it to be legible and relatively attractive. As it should be. I think it's okay now. Not great, but readable enough that it seems heartfelt. Writing so carefully, maintaining steady breath, while at the same time making slight editorial changes. I'm glad I type for the most part, as awful as it sounds I'm much more confident.
The only hesitance I have in sending the letter is that it will probably make her respond and that response will undoubtedly disappoint. The whole charm of the letter is that I make this object, this physical real object, and seal it up and send it away, safe in the confidence that soon that physical object will be with Ms. Weaver. And that will be our only contact. Physical but broken in regards to time. It leaves everything to the imagination. I get to imagine her response. I want to leave it there. Maybe that's why I want her to keep it forever. So when I'm dead and she's dead her kids will find it and the sentiment will be born with them, but without the weight of a specific interaction."
I think I'd fine me narcissistic, sensitive, painfully self aware and too worried about what will happen. I spend time thinking about who will know what when, and if the reality of an actual interaction (which by the way, did end up happening-- I sent that letter) will destroy the idealized image in my head. Maybe that's why this guy sent me back my journal, to pull me into the past, force me to look backwards instead of forward.
-Robert de Saint-Loup
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