Memory

Could there be anything more prosaic than picking up the afternoon mail?  Grey phalanx of metal boxes, all uniform in size, keyholes worn with years of wiggling keys to slot in--bills, flyers, junk mail, expected mail, unexpected mail.  Who could have predicted the power of a piece of expected mail on the topic of taxes?  I knew it was coming, vouchers to pay estimated taxes quarterly.  How utterly without interest!

So you can imagine how blindsided I felt by my reaction when I pulled the plain white envelop from its metal resting place.  Neatly written return address in New Mexico, neatly written address to me.  But the handwriting itself?  I hadn’t seen it in years or so it seemed. I felt a blow to my sternum, eyes filled with tears as memories flooded through me.  Here was the hand that sent me one of Elisabeth Barrett Browning’s love sonnets in a note in junior English, the same hand that wrote a lovely poem when the first pictures came back of earth from space detailing the swirling blues and greens, the sense of wonder of this new perspective of our home.  This was the writing that tightly packed the onion skin letters penned from Vietnam.   This hand composed love letters in Vienna, posted across the Atlantic to keep fragile connections alive.  

Over 52 years I’ve seen this particular hand, but not for years have I seen it on an envelope.  The ease of phone calls, email and Skype precluded the handwritten letter even as recently as an eighteen month tour in Afghanistan for USAID.  And once again we are separated-- by only 300 miles, but 300 nevertheless and for two years.  The best way to get the tax forms to me was by snail mail.  No big thing, right?  How easily we can be taken unawares and suddenly a half century of memory kaleidoscopes through the mind.  Tears of remembered joy, sorrow, regret, chagrin, embarrassment, the whole gamut, coursed down, dripped on the envelope. I heard footsteps behind me, approaching the mailboxes.  I hurriedly turned to the idling car, head ducked, mumbling a hello with choked voice and left.  

My husband is currently working in New Mexico, Land of Enchantment.  Enchantment indeed…