Note: Charles was a nickname for my mother. I'll give the story later.


Feb 5, 1961


Dear Charles,

Thank you so much for writing. I am still on the tread mill. I am as lonely as you. Thank you for the perfume. How lucky we are to be who we are. I know not what to say. (I am reading Shakespeare again and this new twist of language I cannot help)

What stupid thing this would be by itself, alone. It is such a long way, do not be dissapointed at June week, for it is very formal.

Charles - always grow deeper and broader - be young - be happy and sad and dont get caught in by false people living fake lives - be genuine and honest and full of life - the way you are.

Yours-
Michael

I keep on here, im choosing a letter at random and posting. until i get things sorted into dates its a mish mosh of a story. and so it goes.


July 27, 1969

Dear Michael.,

Your last letter sits in front of me and I am sad. Knowing you love me makes me glad and happy inside. If it were for you it just wouldnt seem worth while. There isn't a day that passes that i dont think "Wouldn't Michael love that" or "I must remember to tell Michael that." Linda looks up and there you are! I wonder who will speak to you and soothe you when you demand too much of yourself. Will they misunderstand and abuse a nature so gentle? I have not forgotten you - far from it.

My Michael, I love you well, too well to be left without you for such a long time - and not feel depressed - our year in England was our only break. We've been waiting for each other a long time. No I do not like our separations - I try to give meaning and relevance to my life without you but I can't. We are reaching a time of decisions. These first five years may set the pattern for the next 15 or 20 years. I fear my own dependence on your love. I want to lash our and declare my own independence because of it. I want to tell you that - there is no such thing as one man for one woman and that we can live happily and manage our separate interests like civilized persons. That our child will manage because it has no choice. I want to tell you these things and try to convince myself that they are true, but I can't. Memories sift through my mind - a couple of kids who found something so special that even though they were too young to know exactly what it was they held on with their every fiber. Yes, we could have walked down a different street and missed one another and found another, but I believe with all my heart that it could never have been the same. I mean it when I say that I could never love anyone as I love you. We are of one mind. Marriages are not often made of this - one can work hard at a relationship and have have some success , but there is always something missing. Its the kind of thing that makes you forget about yourself and think of the other person. Its the tight close feeling I get when I know I'm too far away to help, and I read your letter and my reply could never be fast enough, timely enough.

Have I forgotten you? no, and maybe this is why I cannot smile. I realize your hands are tired - I know of your frusteration. But you too must try to read between the lines of my unhappy letters. I am a one man woman and I find it difficult wihtout you. I love you very much. I am only sorry that I cannot cheer you when I know you need it so.

Lydia

Sept 13, 1963

Dear Lydia,

I have ached till i did not think it would end. I have waited and looked for the letter that would tell me that you wanted to see me every day. I have neither smiled nor laughed since you left. I find increased difficulty in finding a reason to do anything. My father bade me to be patient and patient. I have been since the 30th of July. Since that time I have talked to no other girl, tho in the Phillipines there were many who would have done more than talk. And now I wonder, to whom would it have made a difference. I can only ask, dumbly and mute with shock and agony, why have you hurt me so? I am glad you have someone, for I am all alone and I know how bad that can be.

I want to die.

Michael.

Dear Michael,
Speaking to you today only reminded me of my lonliness. Time - always a matter of time. If only it would pass quickly enough for you to be home again, then stand still. But since this is not reality we must look to vacations and short weekends. Eventually our time will come. The life puzzle is put together with time. This is the price we must pay.

So some more patience is needed on both sides. Write. I miss you so - am so lonely without you.

Love Always,
Lydia

letters

to Mrs MC Berkowitz, Toledo, Ohio
from USS Wiltsie

June 16, 1969

Dear Wife,

From far away - late at night and lonely, having been away from you two months - five days short of being married 5 years - i pledge to you my love. I miss you terribly. I want to touch you and see you again. To kiss the back of your neck by the sink - to let dinner burn. i am myself small and vulnerable, but you make me a king. i have such pride in you and the baby that we made together. Read through these clumsy words and perceive the shape and form of my deep and passionate love for you. Michael

construction

I keep dreaming of houses.

there is a general consensus that talking about what your brain conjures up during the mysterious hours is lame, so I won't get into specifics, but I will say that this morning I'm thinking of the language of architecture - the dream provided the experience of understanding the language on a level i usually don't understand as clearly. each house was radically different - and some extreme forms of themselves. I loved these weird extreme craftsman giant buildings. I understood so personally what each one was saying. Perhaps its not unusual to dream of houses now, in my 30s, when this idea of building something for your life pervades everything.

when I used to live in the brewery in Los Angeles, my friend Dave had a particular dislike for the art walks. not because of art. but because the people who opened their doors lived inside their art. Not only was their art all over their walls all the time, but a lot of people had turned their apartment into a sort of version of their art. Walls painted thick black goo, just like the style of the art they made, you get the picture. He claimed it was like walking into their psyche. or something like that. When i think of it a blog must be the same way. In a sense when you visit a blog, you enter a space wallpapered in a persons psyche. weird. does that mean these pages have walls? how many?

is it that as soon as you perceive something, and understand different things about it, your perceptions and ideas create dimensions? how busy is the brain constructing out of perception?

February 22, 1964

I'm going through years of letters from my parents, reading them, transcribing them, savoring them. I'm not sure yet what will come of them. In the meantime, I'll post some of them for reading pleasure and perhaps it will inspire me to continue on. I would give more background but maybe later. I think things best speak for themselves, in the beginning at least. But one thing here, in 1964, my father was 21 and my mother was 20.

February 22, 1964

Dear Lydia,

How can I tell you how much I love you? there are no new ways, so I shall tell you all the old ones. I miss your touch, your smile, your not wanting to leave me, the nails on my back. The hair that tickles nose and mouth when I try to sleep. The warmth when you sleep, the one colored eye. the softness of your lips, the shy tongue, smooth skin, small ears, ticklish neck. you are the happiness missing from this stupid existence. I could not bear your not loving me. I should collapse and break. you dont know yet how much i need you. how every free moment is torture for me without you near. I shall see you by hook or by crook. God end my torture soon in letting me see her. write me. Love, Michael