Arts & Loops

Red-Footed Tortoise

Photo Credit: ReptilesWeb.com

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I've never been one who wanted to time travel. It seemed too much like looking at the last page of a mystery to see how the plot turned out. There is a banner at Central Park with a drawing of a large tortoise with the caption, "Try our fast lane" (may not be exact). Time and letters are favorite topics of mine perhaps because time is flying and letters can be held and re-read. Some of the books I like best were written in letter form. Fair and Tender Ladies. A Bloomin' Bouquet. I could write my autobiography that way I'm sure. The first letter I ever wrote was when I was six. I even addressed it and used my best stationery. I wrote, "I am truly sorry I haven't written. I have been so busy." I had painstakingly copied the words from my mother's example. I laugh when I think of how long it took. This was written to my former kindergarten teacher in Tuckahoe, New York whom I idolized because she was the first to understand just what she had for a student. I remember an art project day. Several pots of paint were put in front of us would-be artists and a small glass bowl with a puckered decorative lip. The idea was to slowly drip different colored paints onto the bowl. Most of the other students were done in less than a minute but Miss whatever-her-name-was allowed me to take as long as I wanted. She told my mother later that curiosity had led her to grant me this permission. She was not surprised that it took me three hours. Time for me has long been something I could suspend. I asked my mother once if she thought it was because as a baby I had been put out for my naps in the jungle garden and watched the sloths for my entertainment when I awoke. She said it was possible but really, she had to believe that if I had watched car races I would still be the slow-paced intense person that I am. After that first letter, I felt my oats so to speak and began a hobby of fan letters. When my daughter was two, she was sitting on the cover of a Chad Mitchell lp which had fallen to the floor as we listened to "Blowin' in the Wind." The scene prompted me to write a fan letter to Chad Mitchell. He replied in his own hand with a Christopher Street address in New York City. I was thrilled and answered with a thank-you. He wrote one more time and signed it, "From a fan of a fan." I wrote many letters after but kept only that one and the postcard from Fred Rogers and notes from Winston Graham. I wrote a poem about my theory of time and explored the Hopi circular theory. I don't have it handy here but will post it some time when I go through my bits and scraps in the Shire. It will take awhile to find because, like Fred Rogers, "I like to take my time." Did I mention that although I saved only those few missives from the famous, I have a huge box full labeled, "Helpers" that are letters all the way from Campus Mail days to the present from friends? I think you guessed that.

...may you find the tweeny moments, the in between spaces, which lengthen very good days and bring you blessings...