An Epistolary Romance

Dear friend, I read with interest your account of your trip to the hills. Your description of the greenery inspired me to go out and buy a box of paints—watercolors mostly. Isn’t it funny that for some reason, artistic dabblers like me think that watercolors are easier than acrylics or oils? Of course, the shopping trip took most of my day and so all I could do was to deposit the bag of art supplies at the door, before it was time to move on to weekly chores. At least, your words have revived the wish to paint, however and for that I am grateful.

****

Who doesn’t love a letter? Thick hand-addressed envelopes that thud when delivered. Sealed so tight with glue and love that you open them gingerly for fear of tearing the precious goods they protect. Folded sheets that open to reveal another person’s care. Their ink. Their sweat. Their perfume. The stain of their morning tea-cup. The place where they cried. The sheet that flew away and was stuck in the hinges of that door that has still not been repaired. 

****

It is not enough to buy the paint. Use them! I should however heed my own advice. After I wrote to you about the trip, I have lost interest in writing the travel essay that was its original inspiration. It was as if I had gone on the trip for one purpose and that was met when I wrote to you about it.

****

Sometimes letters bring photographs. Sometimes they bring cards. Sometimes a child’s drawing. Sometimes a lock of hair or a sheet of stickers or some other loving gift, that you touch and treasure forever. In any event, someone thought about you and lovingly put those things together for your pleasure. 

****

Capitalize on that emotion, my dear. Use the text in your letter to me (I am enclosing a photocopy) and re-make that into the travel piece. Perhaps someday, we can combine our efforts and I can illustrate one of your essays. Maybe we could travel together and it could be a voyage of shared discovery!

****

And then there is e-mail. Where the fluid prose that ink inspires is replaced by staccato and irreverent phrasing that seeks to match the rhythm of fingers on a keyboard. The difference in texture is startling. The difference in culture is impossible. It seems that even the ability to polish one’s prose without obvious effort cannot displace the supremacy of the independent subordinate clause in this medium. Being that way. If you know what I mean. 

****

The journey of discovering you is becoming the one I am most interested in. Perhaps this is a form of writers’ block. Perhaps these are the lingering vestiges of those old novels, where the protagonist undertook a journey through Europe or Asia and discovered themselves—in another. Perhaps in fact, every journey is a journey through one’s own soul.

****

Juxtaposed, the contrast in meter and melody between the letter on paper and the message on e-mail is startling, but it is ultimately illusory. The intent is the same. To break out of one’s natural solitude and to communicate with another. To share the mundane and the precious. To hold on as time passes to the people and ties one holds dear—across continents, generations and politics. To remind and to inform. To greet and to vent. And the more we write to others, the more alone we seem. We sit by ourselves composing message after message, ignoring the world that spins around us. To live vicariously and to escape life. 

****

My, it seems as though we are journeying into unexpected, uncharted territory. I set up my easel and paints, and stood there, my eyes glued to the doormat upon which the postman drops your letters. After the morning’s post, I thought, "Ah! It is almost lunch-time. It makes sense to eat lunch and start." After lunch, I was drowsy and I thought that a little siesta would help my muse. When the siesta ended, it was time for the afternoon post, and there was nothing from you. So I made myself some sweet tea to cheer me up. And then, the sun began to set and I could not paint anyway. So my friend, I have spent the entire day awaiting your letter.

****

Madame de Sevigné would have loved e-mail. She could have written many more letters and had them delivered faster. But the rate of return would have been the same, I suspect. However, she would not have cared. She would have written because it gave her pleasure and because it gave her something to do. Would she have taken as much care with her prose? Oh yes, oh yes. She was an artiste. She wrote partly to communicate, but when you read her letters, you know that she was intoxicated too by the act of writing. The words carried her with them, reducing the recipients on the one hand to mere excuses for the writing itself and on the other, elevating them in gratitude that they were there to receive. Every phrase a gem, every letter a masterpiece. She would have loved e-mail. 

****

I am so sorry I did not write earlier. My children were visiting. My son was here from college and my daughter from the army. When did they become adults? They tower over me and they lecture me. My daughter disapproves of you. She thinks that this is an adolescent exchange. My son insisted on teasing me about my new romance. And even as I protested that we were just friends, my mind went to the things I feel when I think of you and the words you sometimes write, and my conscience said, "Surely, you lie?"

****

And what of those who carelessly litter cyber-space with their thoughtless comments, irresponsible and unedited ‘forwards,’ and instant tirades? They never heard my great-grandfather’s advice on letter-writing: never write when you are angry or depressed. Your mood will change before the letter reaches but nothing can alter its impact. The act of finding paper, filling a pen with ink, settling down at an even surface, physically covering the paper with text, finding a suitable receptacle, buying and affixing the postage and then walking it to a post-box took time. In that time, one could re-think the emotion that prompted the message. One can however, email all one’s spleen and vitriol instantly, and for good measure, send it high priority. 

****

It is hard to say what this correspondence is. Two strangers, bound entirely by words on pieces of paper carried across by a relay of other strangers. When I read your words, I feel that you are touching me. In the warmth of your message is the embrace in which my aching muscles relax. In your questions about my day, my head rests on a dear, familiar shoulder. But in a sea of humans, I would not know you. Would my soul know yours? I wonder.

****

All emotions travel fast with e-mail. And as a relationship courses through the navarasas of life, they are carried at warp speed over e-mail. The relationship progresses at warp speed. From acquaintance to friendship, friendship to intimacy, intimacy to the promise of passion. All in a few messages. Time is short, so are our messages. But our imagination is limitless, our need for love bottomless and our inner isolation relentless. Into this human reality, e-mail arrives, quickly, cleanly and often. Each message an appeal, each message a response to some appeal. Virtual relationships that answer real needs. When I read your words, I feel that you are touching me.

****

Perhaps it is time we met.

****

The demanding human heart devours this virtual caring and then, greedily wants more. To touch the flesh, not the idea. To hear the voice, not the words. To behold the person, not their e-mail persona. More, more, more! This is not enough any more. 

****

Wednesday, 3 o’clock, by the book-store under the clock-tower of the main station.

****

Appearance replaces appeal. Voice replaces expression. And something strange and unknown replaces the intimate and familiar. The person who is so dear and so well-known is, in fact, a total stranger. The thoughts you know come from a head you don’t. The soul that touches your heart belongs to a strange body. The voice that rings clear to the recesses of your consciousness is thick and unexpected. Awkwardness replaces fantasy. Embarrassment replaces passion.

****

Dear friend, it was a pleasure to meet you finally. This correspondence has enriched me beyond words—given a lonely man something to look forward to in his sunset years. I will always wish you the very best. I will be traveling next week to the coast. I will write to you upon my return.

****

The physical act of writing a letter on paper makes the person writing it a little more real. The elimination of all personal detail in the composition and delivery of email—assumed identities and logins, no handwriting, no indication of favorite ink, no tongue to stamp, no smudge of sweat—makes every cyber-friendship a little surreal. Liberated from those details, you are liberated from other constraints as well. You can say what you want and be who you want. Re-invent yourself on every e-mail account. And each time you do that, you risk yourself—your identity, your health, your sanity and your reputation. And yet, the pull of human contact, the need to be with another person, the imperative of sharing make those risks irresistible.

****

It was a wonderful surprise to hear from you after such a long time! I think of you often. I have some news for you. I am getting married next month. We will live here. I know you wish me well. It will be a very small wedding or I would invite you. Perhaps some day you can meet my new husband.

****

And so, suddenly, you disengage. No personal details. No addresses. No phone numbers. Erased from each other’s lives as abruptly as you entered them. The entire history of a relationship is relegated to the Recycling Bin. Another epistolary romance bites the dust. 
 
 
 

Swarna Rajagopalan
East Lansing, 8-29-00