Passions

Where to start? I have been reading far too much Antonia Fraser than I am sure is healthy for anyone, and my passions have been excited. Therefore, I decided to join this foreign world of "blogging" to help eradicate my over-warm sentiments. The most recent book that I have had the pleasure to discover is not actually her work, however she compiled the work therein. It is called "Love Letters: An anthology" thus the name of my blog, I have been that influenced.

The book is a lovely collection of love letters written by people throughout history. She chose to make this collection because, as she so rightly noticed, with the creation of messaging, and emailing and yes probably blogging, letters - and language, don't hold the same significance in our lives as they used to. A love letter was something to cherish. We've all read the Victorian novels where a woman tries to return letters to a man who is no longer "making love to her." Typically, I imagine them to be slightly crumpled from having been pored over so frequently, perhaps tear stained depending on the content, and tied up with ribbon. Although she does not believe love letters are totally dead because, in her words, letters can be carried around as talismans to refresh the memory.

This collection is broken up into various emotions of love letters. Some of the categories are: Declarations, Pleas, Rejections (oh these ones can be quite hurtful),Ecstasies, Passions, Jealousies, Gallantries, Farewells, Unions, and more. Donne, of course, makes an appearance-he had such a way with words. Others are Napoleon, Joyce, Mozart, Chekhov, Proust, Wilde and so many more.

My boyfriend had some moral issues with this book. Why should we be reading such an intimate address between two people who are unknown to us? Do we really have the legitimate right to be privy to their innermost thoughts? I disagree wholeheartedly. As a writer, we set things down to be read - maybe just by us if it is in our diary or maybe for the world if it is in a blog and certainly with a love letter - the whole notion of it is to be read by the recipient. Anything set to paper, unless immediately burnt or destroyed through other methods, is free to the world and while some of us have felt the acute pain of having some piece of writing read that we didn't want to be, it is the reality of setting words to paper. It makes them real or more real than just merely uttered.

Once, a long time ago now it seems. I was madly in love with a boy. Feeling that it was better to know than not to know how he felt, I expressed my undying devotion. Needless to say, it was foolish and nothing came of it, as is typical of a lot of the whole teenage love affairs that we passionately engage in. However, in the throes of rejection, I gave him a book of poetry that I had written all about him and my angst over loving him and it not being reciprocated. I don't know what happened to this book, nor do I want to know. When you write a love letter or a love poem and you hand it over, it is out of your hands as to what happens to it. Is that not why it is so courageous to set your innermost emotions and desires to paper and hand it over to someone? It gives them the ability to crush you and yet we do it because it is worth it. Love changes and people change therefore, everything you sacrifice for love is worth it when you are in the heart breaking torturous passions and are unsure of where you stand. Antonia, I think, recognizes that with this book.

But this tangent has gone on for far too long. My next post I shall try to incorporate a little more brevity and maybe even some levity, I promise, lest we quarrel and find ourselves out of sorts.

Until then
Oceans of love and torrents of tears,
Sara