It’s a gorgeous day here, the sky that bright, tropical blue and the clouds like cotton balls stretched out. I love it here in spring, my garden bursting with colors, all the work of the year paying off. The hydrangeas attract the bees, and the hummingbirds, and everything is very lively around the house. I’ve just sealed and stamped a letter to Harry Landy. I believe I’ve mentioned we write monthly, have for a few years. In his last, he asked if I am lonely! Isn’t that interesting. He also wanted to know what I was like before I was a grandmother—my history, my childhood—so I told him a bit, and now I’ve been sitting here at the desk with my tea cooled, veritably lost in trails of the past.
Did I ever tell you that when I was about nine years old my parents gave me a short letter that had been written by my birth mother when she handed me off? The letter was written to them, not me, but Mother (my adoptive mother) felt I ought to have it. As a child I was tormented by the matter of my adoption. I asked questions about it openly, read books about orphans, imagined an alternative life for myself. I don’t know why it is, it isn’t as if my parents were cruel or dismissive of me; they were wonderful. I think my parents regretted having told me when they did, though it was so obvious I wasn’t related to them biologically. They were both very fair, blond, blue eyes, and me with these dark features and skin several shades deeper; my hair as a child was a thick, glossy black.
I began writing letters and became obsessed. Most often, when I wrote, I got a letter back. This surprises people, but I have found that most people write back. The first letter I ever wrote was in 1948 to P. L. Travers regarding her bookMary Poppins. I loved this book and read it numerous times. I loved that Mary Poppins conducted her own life, and the lives of the children Jane and Michael, in such a controlled, even military, manner. Thisappealed to me terribly, that level of strict control—it seemed very safe. But also, somehow, there was such a great deal of creativity, adventure, color, surprise! And there was something about—Mary Poppins wasn’t their mother, and you knew (even as a child) she couldn’t rightly stay there forever, but as a child I imagined this lovely secret, that Mary Poppins wasmyreal mother and that one day she would float down into my yard on the handle of an umbrella and declare I was her daughter, and she would explain the whole reason for having farmed me out, and then she would settle, and take me back and mind me with that perfect combination of wonder and predictability, though I knew obviously the book was a work of fiction and she would not, and also, didn’t I know, Colt, that as much as I wanted this, I also didn’t want it. I knew the moment she settled in to become the mother I wanted to be mine, that would be the end of the magic. There would be no bottomless bag. There would be no jumping into chalk drawings as portals to other worlds. It’s been a long time since I thought back to the business about Mary Poppins. P. L. Travers wrote me back and I have it somewhere here at the house. Anyway, my point is that I was obsessed with letters and I was rather obsessed with the notion of my birth mother, so Mother gave me this letter she had been given at my adoption.
I’ve just gone and found it. It’s a short little note on some flimsy paper. The writing is in blue ink. The penmanship is very slanted, the letters as long and slim as birch trees. I’m going to copy the letter for you. It says:
To: Mr. and Mrs. Stone,
Good day. I hope you will mind my daughter, Sybil, with attention and kindness. She is a quietand alert baby, and won’t give you a bit of trouble. She is only upset by very loud noises and she seems quite terrified of animals, though she is quickly soothed by singing. When she is older, if she knows about me, and if it pleases you, I hope you will tell her she was a perfect baby, born at dawn under a pink sunrise. She has been very dear to me. All my thanks and prayers, most earnestly, L.T.
So that’s where this all began. You would think I’d have it down to memory by now, but for some reason the only part that stays word for word in memory is the bit about being born at dawn under a pink sunrise. Isn’t that lovely? Makes me miss a thing I never really had.
Now I don’t think about it, at least not like I used to—although I do sometimes. Yes, I suppose it’s still rather always there, part of the original foundation. There, even if I’m not thinking about it consciously. There it is down at the bottom. But the letter writing stuck to me. I wonder what I will do when I am no longer able to see. I am much too old a dog for the learning of a new trick, like braille or dictation. I suppose, like a fish plucked from the pond and left on a sunbaked dock, I’ll probably die.
Emerson Franke, Editor in Chief
The Baltimore Sun
300 East Cromwell Street
Baltimore, MD 21230
TO: The Editor in Chief of theBaltimore Sun
FROM: Sybil Stone Van Antwerp, reader and subscriber for more than forty years
DATE: June 10, 2013
Dear Sir or Madam (with a name like Emerson, one can’t know which):
SHAME ON YOU. I am writing in regards to the article printed on page 2 of the Life section this morning, June 10, 2013, regarding the death of the young girl in Timonium. It was a disgusting, unfeeling blip that should not have been put in a newspaper at all. What good does it do to print a thing like that, for the gawking of strangers and for the humiliation of that girl’s poor father, who is no doubt already nearly killing himself with guilt? Children die regularly—a terrific unfairness—and you don’t advertise that. But a man backs over his child with a vehicle—now that’s newsworthy…. I SPIT upon the unfeeling soul who wrote it. I am repulsed. As if one family’s horror is some kind of spectacle the rest of us have right to observe. Let the family print an obituary for the poor child if it’s what they choose, but to print a thing like that. To make shark bait of someone’s life. Have you no soul within your cold chest? You are clearly not a parent, or if you say the printing was an oversight, then even more shame heaped upon your miserable self for this careless treatment of your post. I have it in mind to cancel my subscription. I know you won’t print this, but I hope you read it and I hope it inspires for you, even for the briefest moment, a measure of self-reflection.
TO: The Dean of the College of English
University of Maryland, College Park
College Park, MD 20742
August 10, 2013
Dear Ms. Genet,
Congratulations on your recent appointment to the deanship of the College of English. I have enjoyed infrequent communications with your most recent predecessors. A little over ten years ago when I retired, I contacted Dick Wright to ask after the possibility of auditing a literature course. He was gracious to welcome me to campus, and I sat for EN305 South Asian Literature. It was tremendous, my first foray into Salman Rushdie and hisSatanic Verses. In the following years, I have audited a variety of courses (Seventeenth-Century British Poetry; Irish Literature; South Asian Literature; Eighteenth-, Nineteenth-, and Twentieth-Century American Literature; and others), and after Dick came Henry Dougherty, who also welcomed me. I missed the chance to register the last two summers, but I would be loath to miss another autumn. I am writing to request the course list and schedule for the fall. Please let me know if there are certain courses you think might be a better fit than others. I am unable to attend evening classes, as I have to drive to and from my home just outside Annapolis, and additionally I would rather avoid poetry, if at all possible. I find poetry terrifically dull. The last time I registered, the fee for auditing was $250. If the fee has gone up, do advise. Otherwise, I will send the check. You can write back by mail, or my e-mail address is: [email protected].
Warm regards,
Sybil Van Antwerp
Sybil Van Antwerp
17 Farney Rd.
Arnold, MD
21012
September 25, 2013
