Papers in a box

I took an accidental trip down memory lane yesterday while cleaning out a few boxes in the family room. These were just lidless cardboard boxes that were living in the basement of the Old House when we moved here and ended up in a corner in the family room where there is still a motley collection of random things that I either don't have a place for or simply don't want to deal with. Or both. One because of the other, if you see.

So, anyway, I was going through these boxes - one was mostly cards and office supplies and random things that made me go, "oh THERE that is," like my old rubber stamp that shows a fish with big, puckered lips and says, "Sealed with a fish."  

The other box had papers of all kinds - old scripts and playbills, letters and cards, old angsty poetry, the journal that I wrote in on stage when I played Cecily in The Importance of Being Earnest. There were also actual journals, full of the obligatory prose of teenage pain and anguish, and a shoebox labeled, "Heather's letters" with myriad letters from friends; some in date-stamped envelopes, some on binder paper folded to look like hearts and arrows, some with lipstick kisses, some with big lettering on the front that say, "WITH UNDIEING [sic] LOVE FROM YOUR TEDDY BEAR MATT."

*sigh* I wonder if the poor fella still burns...

Probably.

Anyway, I sat there for hours, totally engrossed in my journal and the letters - it was fun. I made piles and piles, and they're all still there of course. I did throw away a big box of stuff but a lot of it is going in a box to keep. One of the things I found was a letter from my step-mom Deborah, dated June 12, 1996. It was written a few days after my high school graduation and it's probably been that long since I read it. As I read it, I missed Deborah with an intensity that I haven't felt since her passing almost 9 years ago. I've missed her many, many times over the years, sometimes at the oddest moments - I've had moments where I just wished I could talk to her, get her perspective, and moments where I simply craved the serenity of her company. Her home was a place of peace and quiet for me. Her voice was calm and her manner was gentle and unfeigned. She had her struggles, of course, she was human - but she was a strength to me, and a refuge and I missed her so much reading her letter. It was a happy, peaceful kind of sadness, if you know what I mean.

I decided to post this letter so you could all maybe get a little glimpse of why she means so much to me, and because the letter is meaningful to me again, at this stage in my life - I don't believe that it was an accident that I found it now.

"Dear Heather,

Amid all the cliches and pieties that were spoken at the ceremony yesterday, I thought the oft-repeated, "this is a beginning," was more true than even the speakers realized. Particularly I thought it was true of you.

You will now begin to govern your own life. This after a lifetime of adult betrayals too numerous to name. Some of the betrayals were dramatic, and some were merely quiet and cowardly - showing Ace Ventura instead of holding class. Despite this, you have managed to retain trust in the few adults who have not led you astray - at least not on purpose, and to retain that most important of all human qualities - a good heart.

In a world that has presented you with few role models, you must invent or find your own. This is hard, but it is not impossible (for example, when I looked for a model of motherhood, I sought one in the children's books of Madelyn L'Engle, and even in Mister Rogers' Neighborhood). There are models in books and in history and in quiet streets. And you can look for them in your imagination. Go ahead and daydream about the woman you would like to become. How would she spend her days? How would she talk to her mother or sisters? What music would she listen to? What books would move and shape her? How would she approach the first few steps of governing her own life?

It is thrilling and frightening to be in charge. It is also hard to realize. I think a part of me still expects someone to figure out a better way for me to live and arrange it all for me. I think I'm still looking in bookstores for some obscure title: Deborah, This is How You Do It. It is hard to keep in mind that you have the greatest stake in your own happiness and that you must seriously consult that inner voice of your best self to see if you are really keeping your truest happiness in mind.

It is also hard not to look for the well-worn paths, when so often I think it is the little-trodden one that leads to the interesting part of the forest. Tessa, for example, will likely follow an odd little set of stepping stones covered with ivy to begin her way to a peculiar and satisfying life of restoring old gardens. Your path may be less picturesque - or more so - but I don't think it will have running shoe tracks all over it. Maybe just a sandal print here and there, perhaps a fancy high-heel mark, and maybe the echo of jingle bell socks. That's how you'll know it's yours.

And when you do recognize it, by all means, leap, happy-dance, trudge and moan and sing your way along it. Don't let anything stop you from being Heather Aline-y Bean. Now is the time, my dear little elf, to do it by yourself. *

But if you need any help, know there are some of us on the sidelines cheering. Maybe some of us, like your Grandma Webb, are more extroverted and call out, "Heather!" with gusto, but others of us, your Mom, Tessa, Kyla and me - to name a few - we're watching intently with hope and faith and love.

Yours, Deborah"


When I finished the letter I got the distinct feeling that she is still watching with faith and hope and love. It brought me a lot of peace and a feeling of thankfulness for Deborah and others in my life who have really seen me - past and present :)


* When I was little, someone (it may have been Deborah) called me Heather the Elf. As I was a pill about letting anyone help me (yes, I've always been that way), this little rhyme came to be: "I'm Heather the Elf and I'll do it by myself!" I don't know if I made it up or if someone made it up for me, but there it is. I was probably 3 or 4 when it began.