Ahoy, Treasure...
One of my friends is fond of saying, "You're a real treasure...you should be buried." This, of course, comes after perhaps one too many drinks and is always done in jest, our laughs genuine and our verbal barbs being fired back and forth like kids playing tag. But the word "treasure" is so rarely used today, almost as if it is being saved for special moments of discovery...ancient coins in a farmer's field or a wooden ship suddenly found deep in the ocean after over a century. And sometimes we're lucky enough to find our own treasure. This can be something as simple as moving a drawer and finding love letters written when our parents were young, or an adopted child finding his/her blood mother or father (which can be a good or a bad thing depending on the reception and the direction it would go from there). For me, tackling my self-imposed Take Five decluttering, I came across a storage box in the labyrinth of my basement and inside were a series of file folders. Pulling several of them out, I discovered that they were previously published pieces of mine, complete with my queries to the editors, the responses and the resulting finished pieces. It was a nice bit of glancing back, that "I remember that" moment; but then I put those folders back into the box and carried it upstairs to be sorted later. A few days go by, I stare at the rather bulky in-the-way box, and decide that the time has come to clear those folders out, which is when I find it...the treasure.
At the back of the box was a normal looking folder, only tugging at it proved a bit futile as if it were stuck on something. I pulled a bit more, then reached my hand under the folder and found that it was actually just one thick folder, perhaps four inches altogether. What was that, I wondered. I pulled it out, opened it and saw that it was a collection of letters, as in a lot of letters. So I began reading, and for the next few hours, I didn't move. It's said that for some there is a life review just before you "cross over" from life to death. And here it was, while I was fully alive, for before me sat letters written to me by family and friends, all thirty or forty years ago, a time capsule of my life back then...and hand-written! Remember those days, when even getting a type-written letter was something unique. In those days (and were not talking that far back, as in the late 70s), people actually wrote...cursive writing, perhaps the original definition of "hand" writing. One friend wrote: One last thing...I said this was to be a note and here it is the intro to a 900 page essay. I do agree, writing is easier than speaking. It is so easy to lose the meaning you intend when faced with the interruptions of conversation. On paper you have time to re-think your message, to make it more clear to the reader than you ever could "off the top of your head." Some of my greatest "speeches" were well thought out in advance, written, rehearsed and perfected long before they were ever delivered to the astonished listener. Of course, after that, I had nothing else quite so eloquent to say and therefore, would hope that they would be left speechless! She then added: I think you'll discover the lead weights were merely feathers that blew off as easily as they had arrived.
Where was my head back then? What was I going through? I really have only the vaguest idea, a spiral of being in debt, entering a career change, dissolving a long-term relationship. Whatever. I must have been writing away and triggering some response for many of these letters were quite lengthy, even as I struggled to remember who the person was and how we much have been "treasured" friends to be so open and cavalier with our thoughts and taking the time to put those thoughts into words, dropping it into the postal box and waiting (hoping) for a response; and yet the irony was that now we were but specks of settled dust in the different paths we had taken. Here's a bit from a person I simply cannot dredge up from my memory, even after a good night of rest: Good vibes throughout the house. Sun was going down. Mom and I took the easy chairs in the TV room and watched the movie "Missing." Stirring movie. Emotional I was. Angry. Afraid for the world, myself, humanity, meaning. Drove back home to my house. Eleven PM. Turned on a few lights. Went to the garage to get my mail, always with a slight, excited hope that someone whom I did not know would write to tell me something I did not know about myself. Ah, a letter, or something. Who is Michael Martin?...Without thinking about from whence the letter came, I read as if the letter had sent itself. Read it for its very own worth. Word by word. My mind and heart already wide open from the evening's earlier events. I was thrown wider open. Dear God, I'm touching my core! Oh f**k, my heart! To feel, to feel! Like an emotional orgasm, nothing to hold in to. Tears, tears. I'm feeling feelings, the universe. I know I'm alive! And yet what of the timmes I am dead. Dear god, oh god...Late at night when the world opens up, truth comes. It came that night. Thanks...
So, what did I write? Who knows? But I am honored that in the simple act of corresponding it touched someone enough to write back, perhaps just as her letter had touched me. There were more, some from friends who are friends still, many from family (even from my now-deceased brother*) and many from people I barely remember, their faces as blurred as if I were a bad witness to it all. But their letters, pages long, single-spaced and many on unlined paper! Wow! Even a few letters from me (my handwriting was actually legible back then, not my unreadable doc-script of today, writing that would puzzle even the most skilled of pharmacists). My step-father wrote a few as well, his shaky, barely readable printing still causing a flutter in my heart (he had a bit of Parkinson's or something so to even receive a letter from him was a rare thing); was he bawling me out or giving me a glimpse of praise (the odds on those two would be 90/10). And the bigger question, why did I save all these? Perhaps even then I considered them treasures, that rare receiving of a "fat" letter, one with substance and filled pages front and back. This took time! All were in pen so mistakes, if any, had to be just crossed out or glaringly overwritten. And yet the mistakes were few. Some were before my wedding, some before I headed to the grand Toy Fair in New York to pitch my game (giving good definition to the word yokel, my eyes and mind dazzled and overwhelmed by the Big City), my breaking up from an engagement. Perhaps in saving these letters I was preserving them as therapy for the letters were such lifelines of support, friends and family wishing me well or giving me shoulders to cry on. It was a different part of life that likely pulled me through whatever it was I was going through. But I was far from alone.
One letter from an old friend (called me out of the blue asking for a place to stay for a bit, this during my years of being single and living in a tiny mother-in-law unit) said: I can't begin to tell you what it has meant to me to be able to stay here...This is the toughest period of my life (I can think of none more painful or difficult). You are a beautiful friend. I thank you deeply. While another wrote: ...my therapist said it was very good that I was coherent when I write so she gave me another assignment. She said to write on what is "enough." I have a problem with that I think. Nothing ever seems enough. I don't think a lot of people really sit down and think about limits or "enoughness." We all think about things or situations that we want but not about what would be enough...it's something to think about. And on and on. Perhaps these people have discovered their own box and saved letters, finding one of mine and are now left wondering who I was or what had happened to me. For many of the letter writers, I am still able to contact them and surprise them with their own surprise at their mailbox, a collection of their own writings from decades back as I bundle them together and send them off. One dear friend will, I know, just toss them or bury them in another box unread; her days of living in the past or revisiting it are long gone (as it should be for we only have the present moment); others may chuckle or reflect back much as I've done, glad to have another glance at a moment in their life from years past or to view letters from mothers or brothers who may have since passed away. It will be up to them at this point, my treasure chest has already been opened and gleaned and cherished for what it was and will now be passed onward.
One letter from 1982 came from my brother and perhaps summed up much of what was happening: Mike, I detected in your latest correspondence that perhaps you are passing through a period in the development of your life that allows you an opportunity to pause and reflect on what is really important to you as an individual. Please understand this period comes but a few times in a person's life; furthermore, it is a time to treasure for it becomes the unique chance for a person to seek out their own truths. These truths are based on the synthesis of all our past events and allows one to chart their own destinies without outside interference. For granted that while some degree of solace will be welcomed from the concern of friends, loved ones, relatives, it will be a poor substitute from that overwhelming feeling of satisfaction that you will inevitably feel when you and you yourself arrive at your own conclusions. He then quoted a few poems (authors unknown): 1) Sunset -- Slowly the west reaches for clothes of new colors which it passes to a row of ancient trees. You look, and soon these two worlds both leave you; one part climbs towards heaven, one sinks to earth...2) The Search -- I live my life in growing orbits which move out over the things of the world. Perhaps I can never achieve the last but that will be my attempt. I am circling around God, around the ancient tower, and I have been circling for a thousand years and I still don't know if I am a falcon, or a storm, or a great song. He goes on: A recent trend in modern psychology has been towards the understanding of man as a rational being capable of choice (about time!). This cognitive approach also underscores the importance of realizing that our underlying, prevailing attitudes or emotions are capable of altering our perceptions. The corollary being that our perceptions are not static, they will inevitably change with our attitudes which, according to these psychologists, are always in a state of flux.
His letter was entirely hand-written...in pen.
*Not to panic, my other brother is alive and kicking and has proved quite the sounding wall with the passing of my mother...the latter words and poem noted above came from him.
At the back of the box was a normal looking folder, only tugging at it proved a bit futile as if it were stuck on something. I pulled a bit more, then reached my hand under the folder and found that it was actually just one thick folder, perhaps four inches altogether. What was that, I wondered. I pulled it out, opened it and saw that it was a collection of letters, as in a lot of letters. So I began reading, and for the next few hours, I didn't move. It's said that for some there is a life review just before you "cross over" from life to death. And here it was, while I was fully alive, for before me sat letters written to me by family and friends, all thirty or forty years ago, a time capsule of my life back then...and hand-written! Remember those days, when even getting a type-written letter was something unique. In those days (and were not talking that far back, as in the late 70s), people actually wrote...cursive writing, perhaps the original definition of "hand" writing. One friend wrote: One last thing...I said this was to be a note and here it is the intro to a 900 page essay. I do agree, writing is easier than speaking. It is so easy to lose the meaning you intend when faced with the interruptions of conversation. On paper you have time to re-think your message, to make it more clear to the reader than you ever could "off the top of your head." Some of my greatest "speeches" were well thought out in advance, written, rehearsed and perfected long before they were ever delivered to the astonished listener. Of course, after that, I had nothing else quite so eloquent to say and therefore, would hope that they would be left speechless! She then added: I think you'll discover the lead weights were merely feathers that blew off as easily as they had arrived.
Where was my head back then? What was I going through? I really have only the vaguest idea, a spiral of being in debt, entering a career change, dissolving a long-term relationship. Whatever. I must have been writing away and triggering some response for many of these letters were quite lengthy, even as I struggled to remember who the person was and how we much have been "treasured" friends to be so open and cavalier with our thoughts and taking the time to put those thoughts into words, dropping it into the postal box and waiting (hoping) for a response; and yet the irony was that now we were but specks of settled dust in the different paths we had taken. Here's a bit from a person I simply cannot dredge up from my memory, even after a good night of rest: Good vibes throughout the house. Sun was going down. Mom and I took the easy chairs in the TV room and watched the movie "Missing." Stirring movie. Emotional I was. Angry. Afraid for the world, myself, humanity, meaning. Drove back home to my house. Eleven PM. Turned on a few lights. Went to the garage to get my mail, always with a slight, excited hope that someone whom I did not know would write to tell me something I did not know about myself. Ah, a letter, or something. Who is Michael Martin?...Without thinking about from whence the letter came, I read as if the letter had sent itself. Read it for its very own worth. Word by word. My mind and heart already wide open from the evening's earlier events. I was thrown wider open. Dear God, I'm touching my core! Oh f**k, my heart! To feel, to feel! Like an emotional orgasm, nothing to hold in to. Tears, tears. I'm feeling feelings, the universe. I know I'm alive! And yet what of the timmes I am dead. Dear god, oh god...Late at night when the world opens up, truth comes. It came that night. Thanks...
So, what did I write? Who knows? But I am honored that in the simple act of corresponding it touched someone enough to write back, perhaps just as her letter had touched me. There were more, some from friends who are friends still, many from family (even from my now-deceased brother*) and many from people I barely remember, their faces as blurred as if I were a bad witness to it all. But their letters, pages long, single-spaced and many on unlined paper! Wow! Even a few letters from me (my handwriting was actually legible back then, not my unreadable doc-script of today, writing that would puzzle even the most skilled of pharmacists). My step-father wrote a few as well, his shaky, barely readable printing still causing a flutter in my heart (he had a bit of Parkinson's or something so to even receive a letter from him was a rare thing); was he bawling me out or giving me a glimpse of praise (the odds on those two would be 90/10). And the bigger question, why did I save all these? Perhaps even then I considered them treasures, that rare receiving of a "fat" letter, one with substance and filled pages front and back. This took time! All were in pen so mistakes, if any, had to be just crossed out or glaringly overwritten. And yet the mistakes were few. Some were before my wedding, some before I headed to the grand Toy Fair in New York to pitch my game (giving good definition to the word yokel, my eyes and mind dazzled and overwhelmed by the Big City), my breaking up from an engagement. Perhaps in saving these letters I was preserving them as therapy for the letters were such lifelines of support, friends and family wishing me well or giving me shoulders to cry on. It was a different part of life that likely pulled me through whatever it was I was going through. But I was far from alone.
One letter from an old friend (called me out of the blue asking for a place to stay for a bit, this during my years of being single and living in a tiny mother-in-law unit) said: I can't begin to tell you what it has meant to me to be able to stay here...This is the toughest period of my life (I can think of none more painful or difficult). You are a beautiful friend. I thank you deeply. While another wrote: ...my therapist said it was very good that I was coherent when I write so she gave me another assignment. She said to write on what is "enough." I have a problem with that I think. Nothing ever seems enough. I don't think a lot of people really sit down and think about limits or "enoughness." We all think about things or situations that we want but not about what would be enough...it's something to think about. And on and on. Perhaps these people have discovered their own box and saved letters, finding one of mine and are now left wondering who I was or what had happened to me. For many of the letter writers, I am still able to contact them and surprise them with their own surprise at their mailbox, a collection of their own writings from decades back as I bundle them together and send them off. One dear friend will, I know, just toss them or bury them in another box unread; her days of living in the past or revisiting it are long gone (as it should be for we only have the present moment); others may chuckle or reflect back much as I've done, glad to have another glance at a moment in their life from years past or to view letters from mothers or brothers who may have since passed away. It will be up to them at this point, my treasure chest has already been opened and gleaned and cherished for what it was and will now be passed onward.
One letter from 1982 came from my brother and perhaps summed up much of what was happening: Mike, I detected in your latest correspondence that perhaps you are passing through a period in the development of your life that allows you an opportunity to pause and reflect on what is really important to you as an individual. Please understand this period comes but a few times in a person's life; furthermore, it is a time to treasure for it becomes the unique chance for a person to seek out their own truths. These truths are based on the synthesis of all our past events and allows one to chart their own destinies without outside interference. For granted that while some degree of solace will be welcomed from the concern of friends, loved ones, relatives, it will be a poor substitute from that overwhelming feeling of satisfaction that you will inevitably feel when you and you yourself arrive at your own conclusions. He then quoted a few poems (authors unknown): 1) Sunset -- Slowly the west reaches for clothes of new colors which it passes to a row of ancient trees. You look, and soon these two worlds both leave you; one part climbs towards heaven, one sinks to earth...2) The Search -- I live my life in growing orbits which move out over the things of the world. Perhaps I can never achieve the last but that will be my attempt. I am circling around God, around the ancient tower, and I have been circling for a thousand years and I still don't know if I am a falcon, or a storm, or a great song. He goes on: A recent trend in modern psychology has been towards the understanding of man as a rational being capable of choice (about time!). This cognitive approach also underscores the importance of realizing that our underlying, prevailing attitudes or emotions are capable of altering our perceptions. The corollary being that our perceptions are not static, they will inevitably change with our attitudes which, according to these psychologists, are always in a state of flux.
His letter was entirely hand-written...in pen.
*Not to panic, my other brother is alive and kicking and has proved quite the sounding wall with the passing of my mother...the latter words and poem noted above came from him.
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