To whomever is reading,
While the art of letter writing, as a whole, is vastly dwindling, the particular art of writing love letters is essentially non-existent. Back in the day, writing love letters used to be the norm in courtship. Now, it is seen as a fantasy, or a joint effort with birthday and anniversary cards. In the recent craze of going “back to analog” and consuming physical media, I’ve been reading some famous love letters, and thinking about how these letters reveal something deeper that texts and emails simply can’t.
The one that got me into this whole ordeal is a letter from Vita Sackville-West, friend and lover to author Virginia Woolf. The two exchanged countless letters over decades, but perhaps the most famous one (and the best, most heartwrenching one) is “A Thing That Wants Virginia.”
In it, she writes, “I am reduced to a thing that wants Virginia. I composed a beautiful letter to you in the sleepless nightmare hours of the night, and it has all gone: I just miss you, in a quite simple desperate human way.”
Haven’t we all missed someone so much it feels like all we do is think about them? In every person we see, in every place we go, we’re just ambushed with the absence of them. But to actually write it down and admit it in a letter, and mail that letter to the person we miss, takes quite the courage and vulnerability. And that’s something I think letters allow us to do. Putting pen to paper our feelings both amplifies and simplifies them. Yes, it makes them real and palpable. But then again, it makes them obvious. Of course I love them. Of course I miss them.
And here’s my favorite part of the letter, “It is incredible how essential to me you have become. I suppose you are accustomed to people saying these things. Damn you, spoilt creature; I shan’t make you love me any the more by giving myself away like this—But oh my dear, I can’t be clever and stand-offish with you: I love you too much for that. Too truly.”
Damn you, spoilt creature! You who is lucky enough to receive a love letter? Damn you indeed.
The act of writing a letter takes time. It forces us to think about what we want to say and collect our thoughts before we can simply blurt them out, the way we would in a text or in spoken words. We’re not haste or rushed. We can be precise with our words and choose all the right ones to describe exactly how much they mean to us. I’m so used to being in a hurry, I forget that love is a patient thing.
My other favorite love letter is one from Richard Feynman, American theoretical physicist, to his wife Arline, sixteen months after her death.
“When you were sick you worried because you could not give me something that you wanted to and thought I needed. You needn’t have worried. Just as I told you then there was no real need because I loved you in so many ways so much. And now it is clearly even more true — you can give me nothing now yet I love you so that you stand in my way of loving anyone else — but I want you to stand there. You, dead, are so much better than anyone else alive.”
If Feynman can write a letter to someone who can no longer read it, we should be able to write one for our loved ones who are alive and well. We have so little time with the ones we love, and we should do all we can to show them how much we care about them. Spending some time to sit down with your thoughts isn’t a big ask at all. It’s a habit we should participate in more often.
So for my one-year anniversary with my long-distance boyfriend this year, we wrote each other love letters. Here’s an excerpt of mine.
“In Vita’s letter, she became reduced to a thing that wants Virginia. Sometimes I feel reduced to a thing that misses you. Like I was earlier, making tea. Like now, forty minutes to midnight on a Monday. Like I will be tomorrow, and the day after that. I read a poem that said, “if you walk into a room and notice what is missing from it, / It’s still there, isn’t it?” It seems like my room, my bed, my refrigerator — every space that can fit two, and even those that can’t — are still noticeably absent of you.”
This love letter is a tangible reminder of my love, suspended in this moment, one year into loving him. We can always come back to this moment, remembering exactly what it felt like.
I hope this inspired you. I hope you write a love letter.
Love,
Cynthia
