Lost Letters
In 1995, I went to look at an apartment on the far west side of Hoboken, which at that time was a sketchy area. I had just landed a job at NBA Entertainment as a transcriber of sports interviews, and I needed a place to live that was close to (but Lord, not in) Secaucus, NJ. My salary was meager, and I had to work with it.
I walked into the railroad apartment and waited for my roommate to show up. For the very imaginative, it was a 2 bedroom place – and cost $700/month. And though I did not expect this, it was absolutely beautiful. Exposed brick, rich, grainy, wide planked dark wood floors, clean, updated kitchen. A woman and man, both older than me by about 5 years, sat at a kitchen table. I said I wanted the apt., and they said okay. I don’t remember the guy at all, but the woman’s name was Pam. She was kind and easy, yet not ingratiating – the sort of person you’d feel good about about. I signed the lease that sat on her table and moved in a month later.
About two months into living there, a letter arrived in the mailbox, addressed to her. An oblong envelope with green stamped designs on the back, it bore the mark of a writer who had taken the time for herself to really craft something. Not an obligatory letter; this writer had made it an evening’s activity to write this letter to her friend Pam.
I put it aside and the next morning, went downstairs to ask the landlord, a kindly, older Egyptian man who owned the building and manned his convenience store on the first floor – if he had a forwarding address for Pam. He didn’t. I looked her up in the phone book, and she was unlisted. Short of hiring a private investigator, I didn’t know how to find her.
I held onto the letter, unopened for three months, wondering if she’d get in touch with me – maybe her friend would tell her about the letter, and she’d come back to claim it. She didn’t. Finally, one night, I sat in my room on the floor and opened the letter and read the sometimes uneven, and always enigmatic, hammered type.
Pam’s friend was hanging out in her room the night of the letter. I had a perfect image; she’d lit a candle and set up her typewriter. Among her news bits, she reported that she’d finally ended a relationship with “xxxx” – she didn’t know what she’d been thinking to be with him – and she was seeing someone new, for the “nooky”. It was nice. She had a way with words, Pam’s friend. And the letter was decorated with various stamps and drawings, some with dialogue bubbles. I really liked Pam’s friend, and of course, Pam – for effortlessly earning such a friend just by being her cool-ass self.
I loved this letter, and simultaneously harbored some sadness over it as well. It had really been a divine evening, as you could read, that had provided the opening to create it. Had I written that letter, I would’ve lamented its having been lost in the mail or otherwise not received by my friend. It was un-recreate-able. It was a mood, a vibe, a misty life between the cracks of work, family and social life, etc. I still have that letter to this day, and though it was never meant for me, it’s one of the best I’ve ever received.
I was witness to life being lived, and this completely voyeuristic approach to letter reading was new to me. Everyone who knows me knows I LOVE writing and receiving letters. In the age of email and immediate immediateness, it’s a lost art form that I’m desperate not to lose. I’ve written and received many letters in my lifetime, and none gave me the feeling that I got from reading Pam’s letter from her friend. And it got me thinking… what if I were to write some letters, to whomever I wanted, and from me, but sent to someone else? That reading-once-removed, that feeling, was so delicious that I want to pass it on.
If you’re reading this and interested, send your address (or someone else’s) to erika@littlesilvermusic.com, and I’ll send a letter – crafted by me and meant for someone else – to that person. Like the local radio station, I’ll take the first three callers. I’m only committing to three, because let’s face it – I have a baby now and and frankly, you’ve got to have a divine night for this kind of creation. I’m being optimistic to think there are three of those in my near future, but I’m giving myself to the end of this year to send out the three. So write me.