April 1, 2008
Tuesday

Nights in white satin, never reaching the end.
Letters I’ve written, never meaning to send.
             — Justin Hayward, b. 1946
                 English singer-songwriter
                 from “Nights in White Satin”

When I learned that the NaBloPoMo theme for April was “Letters,” the Moody Blues immediately began playing in my mind. “Nights in White Satin” is a song of yearning that alludes to lost times and missed opportunities. Every single lyrics source I checked gave the second line as “letters I’ve written.” But I’ve always heard it as “letters half written.”

The idea of writing letters never meant to be sent is a component of most “writing to heal” plans I’m familiar with. Writing to instead of merely about the boyfriend who broke up with you by simply ignoring you every day or the fourth grade teacher who wouldn’t let you have a perfect attendance certificate or the writing workshop leader who treated you like a nuisance is thought to help you access your feelings more directly and speed the shedding of your anger and hurt.

For about the last ten years I was in the classroom I ran an annual letter-writing assignment. I often did it this time of year, when both the students and I were thoroughly bored with the standard academic exercises of five paragraphs about symbolism in The Great Gatsby or the sonnet form in the work of E.E. Cummings. Letters are essays, I told my students, and the most valuable writing they can ever do is that which keeps them in touch with others. I gave them suggestions (ten in all) such as writing to a non-famous person they admire, to a teacher they had in elementary school, to someone who once gave them a particularly treasured gift, or someone who gave them something less tangible, such as hope or encouragement. The letters had to be of positive focus, they had to be at least 250 words, but they didn’t have to be sent.

The assignment proved to be popular. It was easy to do, easy to evaluate, almost impossible to get a bad grade on. I often did the assignment along with the students, but I have to say most of mine were “letters half written” instead of “letters I’ve written.” 

The April NaBloPoMo suggestion coincides with a renewed desire in my own life to follow up, follow through, make contact. Last week I gathered all the pretty writing paper I have that so seldom gets used in this age of e-mail and word processing, the specific-occasion cards and beautiful blanks I’ve bought and never used, the “Love” themed postage stamps I’ve acquired every time I developed the urge to write surprise thinking-of-you letters to people.

As I wrote in that piece,

I miss the depth and the heart that a genuine letter can carry. I miss the decorated letter sheets (although some of my most cherished missives have come on lined loose-leaf notebook paper), the feel of unfolding the little packet, the awareness that you are holding something the friend or beloved has recently touched.

And I miss communicating with some of the people I wouldn’t dream of phoning, people who were once part of my life, who gave me joy and encouragement, whose presence in my history is part of who I am. And I haven’t the moxie usually to say deeply-felt things to people I see every day.

I don’t remember now how many of the one hundred letters I so confidently announced I would write I actually produced. If my stash of postage at several bygone first-class rates is any indication, it wasn’t many. But I wrote three last week: a “thinking of you” note to a friend who had to drop out of our writing group to care for her terminally ill father, a teenager of my acquaintance undergoing treatment for Hodgkin’s lymphoma, and a thank-you for a birthday gift. That one does have a letter half written in draft in my notebook. I’d delayed long enough in sending the thank-you message itself, and suddenly I was too shy to say more.  

I have 125 special stamp sets left, and a basketful of pretty papers and cards. Let’s see how many I can use before I need yet another “helper stamp” in May, and let’s exhaust the supply by this time next year.

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