Part IV: Writing Wrongs
As my mom remembers, I was obsessively concerned with morality as a child; I always felt like I was doing something wrong.
I sat on the floor for hours writing carefully crafted notes to my mother. I was positive to include each and every little detail; I could not and would not leave out a single detail. So I checked, and double checked, and checked a last time, and two times after that to be sure that I included everything that happened. And when I saw I didn’t, I would crumble the paper up, throw it to the floor, and begin again. I not only had to include each detail; I constantly erased parts of the letter, writing it over and over again until I was pleased with how it looked; the handwriting has to be perfectly neat, the letter formation—flawless.
The letters had a similar pattern: I went into excessive detail to confess guilt about schoolwork or school situations, and I always asked to make sure that what I did was (morally) okay.
I remembered that I wrote letters in fourth grade; I was sure of it. But I didn’t remember that it persisted for years. According to my mom, I wrote hundreds—but this is the only one she could salvage today. It’s funny how she hoards receipts from 1985 and kept every art project I have ever done, but the letters are nowhere to be found.
I’ve seen thousands of pictures from this time, but none of them make me feel like I do when I read this letter. I remembered the letters consumed me, but I didn’t remember how. They say a picture is worth one thousand words, but a tangible letter you wrote as a child tells stories; it creates pictures. It triggers memory.
This letter gave me a clue as to what I was thinking. It made me remember that “I saw” never meant “I looked”, and that “I heard” and “I listened” were blatantly different. It made me remember there was relief in adding “or something like that” and “I think” because they were safe words; they meant that I thought I included everything, but couldn’t say for certain.
“As a child, I left out words such as ‘is,’ ‘the,’ and ‘it,’ because they had no meaning by themselves. Similarly, words like ‘of’ and ‘an’ made no sense.” (31)
– Temple Grandin
Reading and re-reading it has a haunting familiarity to it. I routinely read over the letters a few times before feeling ready to set them on my mom’s pillow. That’s when the order mattered the most. It’s where the arrows were strategically placed, where that last bit of precision came in. And the order still matters. It’s why I have accommodations to type any question that you would have to write out by hand in your Blue Book—so I don’t have to worry about arrows at all.
As much as this letter disturbs me, I would give anything to be able to read them all. Not having the other letters makes it feel like they don’t belong to me anymore. They don’t feel like a part of me anymore. It’s as if I never wrote them. This letter is the only proof that it exists.
I took the time and energy to write these letters, I want to be able to read them. I deserve to be able to read them.
For so long, I wanted to dissociate myself from them; now, I would trade anything to have them—but it’s no longer a choice. My memory made that decision for me.
This past Thanksgiving break, my sister found this while helping my mom clean out her closet. A "You'll never guess what I found!" echoed through the hall, the steady elevation of the creaking in of the wood floor told me the walk was 'excited.' A second later my door flings open and holds it up to me.
I took it in my hands and held it like it was The Golden Ticket in Willy Wonka.
And I cried. Not just because it was a birthday card.
“It took a long time to explain the fragility and intricacy because no word exists alone, and the reason for choosing each word had to be explained with a strong story about why it must be said this certain way" (19).
-Leslie Marmon Silko