The Edge of Empty

The attic is almost empty. I've been working on it for several days now, and that's after last year's cleaning. We're down to the old pieces of linoleum covering the bare floorboards; the accumulated dust of more than a century, in some corners; the overturned mousetraps and bat droppings beneath the chimney.

Yesterday I put on headphones and listened to all of Mahler's 2nd symphony while I worked, sitting down on the top step of the stairs to listen to the final, choral movement and rest from the heat and humidity. Today, after thunderstorms, it was cool and I finished nearly everything, lugging boxes of old ceramics and metal to be recycled, tearing the covers off unusable hardback books. At the end, there was just a pile of boxes and cases that J. needed to go through, but when I asked him about them, he said, "What that?" pointing to a small brown briefcase I didn't recognize. "That's yours, I think."

"Really?" I said, and went over to get it, shaking off the dust and blown-in insulation from the tarnished clasps. We opened it, and saw a stack of notebooks beside a tied bunch of letters. "Clearly yours," he said, and passed it over to me. For the next hour I sat and read through the notebooks - all from courses my junior and senior years in college - and the letters, all from old boyfriends, one of whom I almost married. The letters were poignant, and painful to re-read, but even more so were the carbon copies of letters I'd typed on my old manual Olivetti as I tried to figure out what to do with my life.

 

Who was that girl? I looked back and saw myself struggling to find my way into academia or museum work with virtually no models other than professors I admired, and little experience of the world other than my university career, which had started out in difficulty - I was a smart kid from a very small rural town in a big, highly competitive Ivy League university, and it was sink or swim. It took me three semesters to get my feet under me, and then I had to take extra courses, including three languages, to satisfy my new major, classical civ., in time to meet all the graduation requirements and write an honors thesis. I applied to two graduate programs in the conservation of antiquities - at NYU, and at the University of London. One of the recommendation letters written by one of my advisers was in the briefcase:

...Her drawbacks are few: a slight shyness or lack of self-confidence, little family money, and no field experience...in her junior and senior years of college she has shown excellent ability in learning and understanding difficult subject matter, developing new ideas, and relating herself to working with others. Her efforts and interest in her chosen academic field are outstanding, and she has a stable and mature character. She is patient, industrious, and determined, full of imagination and curiosity.  Working with her is a challenge and a pleasure.

But... I didn't get in. My chemistry grades, from freshman year, were too low. The rejection letters were in the briefcase too. 

When I didn't get into one of the graduate programs, I thought the world had ended. It hadn't, of course, but it would take some time to pick myself up and figure out a new direction. How I wish I could have looked ahead and seen how things would turn out, even though it took a long time for the classics student to become Cassandra. But the years between the days of 10-cent stamps and today are far too numerous and dense to lay out in neat sequence.

I desperately wished today that I could protect that girl, and the boys she hurt with that determination the professor had praised. But all I could do was read the letters and try to learn something new, even now.

Comments

[Mouse]

Thank you for this post
It is so poignant and it touches me deeply as I try to come to terms with who I once was and who I have since become, to untangle the knots of the intervening years and make sense of my life now
Would we wish to know all that lies ahead of us?
In my case I think not
But perhaps, armed with the knowledge of foresight I could have side-stepped a few emotional snares and steered a safer course through the landmines that were strewn across my path
Hindsight may be a wonderful thing
But give me foresight anyday!

[dale]

Oh, Beth. Hugs.

[beth]

Thanks.

And I forgot to ask: how many of you recognize what's in the top photo?

[Marja-Leena]

I read this earlier this evening, felt incredibly moved but had no suitable words to respond with. Now I'm back in a fit of insomnia, and still feel tongue-tied. The regrets for past actions and the shattered hopes speak of pain, yet what I know of you, Beth, is that you grew into a strong and loving person. Probably we all have some of these kinds of growing pains, hmm? Reading this also made me feel hesitation in going through what I still have of my mother's old letters and all the old family albums, not so much that I'd find skeletons but just the heavy weight and flood of memories that can overwhelm me for hours and days. Ach, the insomnia is speaking...

No, I could not figure out what's in the top photo... a mouse trap, an ancient slide projector??

[zuleme]

Looks like a pair of ski boots.
My MIL was just telling us she found her diaries, in Finnish, from when she was 15 onwards and how powerful it was reading them. She's the only one who can! She was obviously having powerful feelings towards the young girl she was, in Finland during the war and afterwards. Her grandmother's family had to leave their farm in Karelia (don't know if that is the right spelling) with just what they could carry. Knowing that all their animals would be killed. The Russians took over. The farmland is still part of Russia.

Looking around this sprawling place and trying to imagine leaving with what I could carry, I'd have a cat or two, a laptop and probably a camera around my neck.

[beth]

Zuleme, you've got it (why am I not surprised?) That's a pair of original leather lace-up Molitor ski boots that J. bought in 1963, when he was in seventh grade. I think they were all handmade in Switzerland. The first buckle boots weren't made for a few more years. These Molitors represented the transition from flexible boots to stiff-sided boots, to go with ski that had edges. Ah, technology!

Thanks to both you and Marja-Leena for your comments and personal stories - I'm kind of fascinated that Zuleme's refers to Finland right after you spoke of your mother's letters, Marja-Leena.

[Natalie]

Ah Beth! Old letters and journals! Fascinating, embarassing, enlightening, heart-tugging, hypnotic. I have so many, have been wondering what to do with them.

It seems apt that you should find this briefcasee just as you're about to close the door on one part of your life and enter another.

xxx

[Kaycie]

How bittersweet finding that old suitcase full of papers must have been. I wonder why you didn't recognize it. I had forgotten what a 13 cent stamp looked like, and I don't remember the 10 cent ones at all.

That top photo looks like some kind of odd saddle to me.

[Anne Gibert]

I only know you through your blog, Beth, but the letter of recommendation is just how I imagine you. So I think that girl is still there, but with additions and improvements. I guess the hardest lesson life has for us is learning how to save what we can of its essence, and then let the past go. Some of it slips away quietly, some tears painfully.

Even in old age there's growth and newfound pleasure.

[Dave]

Poignant. It's been years since I've re-read old letters like that...

"She is patient, industrious, and determined, full of imagination and curiosity. Working with her is a challenge and a pleasure." Still true!

[zuleme]

I recognized the boots since my husband is Swedish and could ski as soon as he could walk! And of course, I'm in skiing country and just vidioed a reenactment of Hannes Scheider's arrival in our valley. He was a famous skiing instructor freed from the Nazis by a local man and brought to run Mount Cranmore.
It has been raining so much here we look like a Northern jungle. All the books are curling.

[Teresa]

ski boots ?

[Teresa]

You are brave to open that bag and read the letters, Beth. I have a couple boxes of such letters and even the whiff of dust and old paper I get on opening the box ambushes me in a way that makes me hungry.

At the same time if I do manage to read a few on occasion I slip into a good writing place almost immediately.

And as for the ski boots photo, the window edges are just as evocative. To me.

Lovely.

Teresa

[Dick]

Exactly as Natalie says. Plus maybe it doesn't do to regret or to wish backwards. What is good and strong now was moving into position even then.