Act natural

( Saturday, Jul. 20, 2002 8:16 pm )

>Old love letters

I had a lovely day alone today--still enjoying the freedom of not considering anybody else's plans in the tiniest little bit. Not that I've done anything astonishing with my freedom. I took a couple of very long drives since it was so nice out today, interestingly along routes that led me past all the summer camps I've ever attended (3).

Tonight I found a folder that contained letters sent to my mom while she was in college by an apparent-boyfriend named Joe. At first I found him hilarious and awful, but in the end I just had to pity him. I only have his half of the correspondence, but you can tell things are headed downhill by the bottom of the stack: in one letter he starts uncharacteristically telling her how much he loves her, even mentioning marriage, in the next he scolds her for not writing and threatens to send her picture back, and in the third he's reacting to what must have been my mother's "let's just be friends" spiel. I have to admit I laughed at that. Poor Joe. It's all very sixties: he's very excited about Steppenwolf by Herman Hesse and an album of Bach music played on a moog synthesizer. Lordy. I about rolled on the floor. He seems sort of a pretentious sort, but I had to agree with him on one point, where he notes that my mother's letters make it seem like she doesn't have a care in the world. It's true, having recieved her letters before I know she's all fluff and sunshine. "Is this the real you?" Joe asks. I really feel a sympathy with him on this point, even if he is deluded and irritating, as I react to her the same exact way.

The letters were in the Closet of Infamy in our basement, which also houses 20 years worth of old Playboys, all the baby teeth the so-called tooth fairy collected from my brother and me, and other assorted memorabilia. Is it weird of me to think my mother left them there for me to see (they were pretty obvious, and she knows my sneaky personality)? She had recently been telling me about her old boyfriends due to the advent of Nathan in my life, and it would be like her to hold herself up as an example of popularity. She makes it sound as though she had a parade of boyfriends stretching to the horizon, but my suspicion is now that she had only 2 before meeting my father.

I wanted to see if Joe would mention sex, but he never did. If I had gotten those letters (and I did get similar ones from Nathan) I would have been reading through all those updates of his life whining "taaaaaalk about meeeeeee." I'm so self-centered, but it's true. They weren't exactly love letters in that way, I don't even know why she saved them. They weren't a great way to get to know anything about her. I do know a lot about Joe circa 1969 though. I may be the world's foremost expert, aside from Joe.

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