From the Archive: My Own!

About a month ago, I received a box of letters that I had written to a friend, about 50 letters in all from the mid-1970s to the mid-1990s when, you guessed it, emails supplanted our paper-based correspondence.

It took me a while to decide to confront my Old Self. And after I opened to box, I wondered—What should I do with them? Save them for posterity? Be selective and save some? Shred all or a few, the modern-day equivalent, I suppose, of “burning my letters”?

I wondered—are they a glimpse of the world at a certain place and time, as well as my own lurches toward maturity? Would they illuminate or only confuse my survivors? The irony that I spend hours at a time tracking down and reading personal letters from/to my biography subjects does not escape me—but I am not going to write a memoir and I don’t see anyone writing a biography of me.

The package also made me consider the randomness of what shows up in an archive, especially when your last name isn’t Roosevelt or Eisenhower. Someone happened to save my letters rather than throw them away—thus, they can be read by posterity. (If I so choose, that is). Also, letters are produced when the two people are physically apart, thus they reflect a different aspect of a relationship than day-in, day-out contact. (For example, I read in Cross of Snow by Nicholas Basbanes that the letters between Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and wife Fanny Appleton were voluminous while they courted, then almost nonexistent since they were usually in the same place post-marriage.)

Me in 1977 in Venice, Italy.

Back to the pile in front of me, and whether I had the courage to go through them. Eventually, yes.

A lot of angst, especially in my 20s, which is when most of the correspondence takes place. (In fact, my letters became decidedly more boring as I aged, hmmm). But I also discovered some surprisingly relevant points for today, some of which I don’t even remember experiencing or thinking. [The 2021 me couldn’t resist some commentary in brackets below.]

From the 1970s:

• December 1974, a few weeks after I turned 19: “The Metroliner was filled with businessmen returning from Washington very jovial and very, very drunk. [How did I end up on a Metroliner—I always took the cheaper trains? But I digress]. This one guy gave me a really hard time, of course no one else would help me although it was obvious he was harassing me. When he pinched me as I walked by, that was the last straw and I very politely but rather firmly told him he was old enough to be my father and he’d better not lay a fucking hand on me again.” [I was unfortunately not always so empowered but yay, me! I have no memory of this incident.]

• Pre-Internet, I realized the best way to learn what was going on in the world would be to read daily papers from several different countries. [Wrote that when I sat in New London, Connecticut, no chance of Le Monde or much else on the international scene but at least I was looking beyond my world.]

• Summer of 1975, my complaints about my boss at my summer job, a guy named Larry: “We hear about his alleged romantic prowess while he constantly berates women. His main logic against equalization is that when he was in the Navy, women wanted equal pay, admittance to service academies, etc., but don’t have to fight and can have shore leave.” I then went on a tear about not only changing an “asshole-ish opinion like this, but the whole structure reinforcing it.” [Toxic workplace environment—who knew the term then? And thanks for the reminder to my older self that I thought “structurally” back in 1975.]

• “My father just called and someone took the payroll $ for the week from his store. It was an inside job….Now he’s really upset and ‘can’t believe it, just can’t believe it.’” Now I say people are crummy.” [This is very upsetting both that it happened and I don’t remember it. Unfortunately he had a worse “inside” theft problem in his small store about 10 years later that I do remember.]

From the 1980s:

• February 1, 1980: “This week I did a story on Black History Month [I worked for the Weekend section of the Washington Post at the time]….I started getting into it. The histories and guides to this city are so incredibly white, as you might imagine, that everything had to be learned by talks with people up at Howard University, etc. It really taught me something this week, especially how much more there is to know. Then—resentment! I should have learned this already in high school history classes or college ones. But not when black history is relegated to a few select courses.” [Acknowledging today that I hadn’t looked very hard before that, but at least I recognized that I didn’t know what I should have known. But, that was how many years ago? And still an issue….]

• August 4, 1981 [by then, I was working in San Jose, Costa Rica]: “Married Costa Ricans who are fascinated by single gringas, whose wives just don’t understand them, are getting to be a drag. It’s 9:15 p.m. I just went out with a guy who—surprise—lives with his wife and 4 children, which I didn’t realize. He agreed we should just be friends, then lunged again.”

• [Later in the 1980s, I had to look for a job but didn’t know what I wanted.] “As for the ‘informational interviews’—I still don’t know what I want to do. Will I ever? I am attracted to things which I think I’m good at but have no background, lately editorial writing and university administration. I think I’d make a good Dean of Admissions for some reason. [Actually, I would have made a terrible dean of admissions but a good editorial writer. At that point, I ended up accepting a job that was not very satisfying.]

From the 1990s

• September 12, 1990: “The whole situation in the Gulf, and the related and unrelated economic woes are most depressing. So much for thinking that I was bringing a child into a new world of peace and harmony. If Hussein’s so horrible (and I have no doubt he is), what were we doing cozying up to him all these years previous. When I went into the library to find a book about Iraq, they were almost all books about Iran and Lebanon, and none about Iraq except some old State Dept. guidebook. No doubt the Iran and Lebanon books only came about after the crises there, and there are some books being madly published about Iraq now.”

• September 1991 at the Georgetown University library. “Students are looking ever-younger. It does shock me to think how long ago, etc. etc. blah blah. Partly because it’s hard to accept one’s own—ahem—approaching middle age, but also because the ‘80s seem such a waste in terms of lasting achievements beyond the pursuit of wealth and conservative politics.” [Ack! I was 36 years old worried about feeling old! But I think I nailed the ‘80s.]

So I still haven’t figured out what I will do with the letters. But it was less painful, and occasionally more affirming, to read them than I expected.

I sent postcards, too. U.S. postage was 10 cents.