Bird As Fish

Letters that mean something - I have gotten a few letters that jerk at my emotion, make me really, really angry, that swallow me in bliss.

This summer I was on vacation and I wrote a letter to my then sweetheart. I never gave it to him and we broke up soon afterwards. I regret not giving it. It let him know how I really felt. I found it recently on a piece of lined paper, folded and refolded and almost soft because I kept it in my pocket so long. I now wish I had not been such a chicken, I wish I had given it to him. I feel like it needs to get out in the open now because I really meant it, and things with sincere emotion are not meant to stay hidden. Do I make any sense? I don't know. Just read the letter.

Dear Love,
I love you dear and I wish you were here, sitting with me cuz I miss you, I really do, and the more I see couples in love, hand in hand, hand on waist, I miss you all the more. Wish you were here sweetheart. Right now, I'm sitting in a tree over a river - presently I have dropped my pen into the river and have gone to retrieve it - which explains the lighter colour of ink. Thank God for plastic pens that float. It is quite a large tree and I am about 15 feet onto the river, although it is more like a bay off the main river. My cabin is about 30 feet from here - Cabin 81 with a small green door that Naing and JJ can hardly walk through without ducking. And there is this little Chinese girl with Down's Syndrome across the river. We were talking - her name is Sarah, and I remember her from a couple of years ago. She wanted me to jump in the water from the tree, but I told her I didn't want to cuz it's cold but she wanted me to anyways. Then she got her fishing pole to show me how she was going to fish, but she got it stuck in a tree. So I went over there and got it down. She told me to 'be careful Nananee' which is what she calls me. Now that I have returned to my treetop perch, she is gone, but the wind has picked up and I can feel the tree swaying under me - almost an unnerving feeling if you are not used to it, and I wish you were here. Out of the main river, the boats go by and sometimes, I wave at them, but usually they don't see me cuz I'm sitting in a tree. And down on the water are thousands of these harmless little water striders, and at first, they all seem to move in sync, but then when you look closer, you realize that they don't mean it that way. I can see little minnows in the water and bigger fish passing by and innocuous floating seaweed finding its way to the resting grounds of the bay. And a long way down the river is Lock #38 where the boats go down away but in between is a lot of trees and water. And I'm hoping my sandle doesn't fall off and land in the river. I'm not so sure it would float as well as the pen. And I wish you were here to enjoy all of this with me, and see it all for yourself.
Love MJ.

I keep all of these letters in a box, hidden away under unused thankyou cards. I have thought of burning some of them, but I have never been able to for some reason. Maybe it is holding onto the past, but there is something in me that won't let me destroy them. Some of them are ones I have wished to send, but never had the courage, especially to my sweetheart. All of the letters in the box have one thing in common - they shouldn't be there. It is just one more thing from my secret life that maybe one day, I will have the priviledge of showing to somebody else. But now, indefintely, they will stay, where only I know, secreted away.

© 2003 All Rights Reserved MJ Jackson
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