News of Michael Jordan’s love letter to his high school sweetheart recalled the confession of writer Wallace Stevens: “Some of one’s early writings give one the creeps.” I certainly would not wish for my high school notes to be published, much less auctioned to the highest bidder like MJ’s! If not creepy, I’m sure plenty of what I wrote was cringeworthy.
I am of an age that feels nostalgia for notes written on lined paper, carefully folded, and passed from friend to friend or perhaps slipped through the ventilation slat of a locker. While I like to think that I worked hard on my school assignments, I know that I labored over those private missives, agonizing about word choice and tone. A few times, I even received a note, and while I cannot recall the wording, I remember clutching the paper to my chest, picturing the one who’d written it.
Later in college, I worked as a camp counselor for a summer. Each high school camper had a “mailbox” made out of a common brown lunch bag and taped to the wall of the cafeteria. Their peers could write a “warm fuzzy” or affirmation, then drop the message in one of the bags. We counselors used to joke about the “hot steamy” messages passed between lovebirds. At the end of the week, each camper took home their mailbox and, most likely, lost the notes or deposited the contents in the trash. But who knows? Maybe there are a few fuzzies and steamies floating around out there. Or, even now, someone is remembering the letter they wrote long ago, and something like a flame flares from the ash, lighting a smile on their face.
Andrew Taylor-Troutman is the author of the book with Wipf and Stock Publishers titled This Is the Day: A Year of Observing Unofficial Holidays about Ampersands, Bobbleheads, Buttons, Cousins, Hairball Awareness, Humbugs, Serendipity, Star Wars, Teenagers, Tenderness, Walking to School, Yo-Yos, and More. He lives in Chapel Hill, North Carolina where he is a student of joy.
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