Magic Words: Letters and Building a Presence within Absence

by maia nuñez

Do you ever marvel at the inherent magic of writing? Even when academic essays present themselves as more of a chore than a means of release, I find the amount of time spent on an introduction alone to be a noteworthy indication of attention. 

Naturally, though, not all writing can be so polished, especially when writing to someone close to you. Letter writing is a prime example of such an intimate mode of expression; it’s a translated stream of consciousness that your correspondent is forced to work with. Consequently, there’s a practically innate and remarkable mysticism around a letter’s ability to preserve continuity and to hold all the jumbled feelings and inside jokes of a conversation between friends and lovers alike, especially when one is confronted with a sudden separation from their loved ones. 

At the risk of sounding trite, the collective isolation felt this year was (and is) certainly something to marvel at. Uprooted realities and modes of living were plentiful and I’ve lamented more than once at the abrupt separation from friends who live all over the country and, in some instances, so close that our severance was all the more severe. There was, not to mention, the general anxiety regarding the rascally virus that sundered us. 

As I rode out the remaining fragment of my spring semester into the sticky summer, most of New York’s COVID numbers dropped allowing me to see more of my friends, but only sparingly out of a general sense of caution. As anyone would be, I was insatiably greedy for more quality time spent with friends and family, but for obvious reasons I couldn’t be reckless. On my birthday I was gifted with a letter writing kit which could have acted as a cruel reminder of my isolation in such a warm, inviting season; rather, it prompted me to pick up my silly little TD Bank pen and fulfill my dreams of recording my thoughts à la emotionally-repressed eighteenth-century noblewoman. 

I sent a rainbow of letters adorned with a kaleidoscopic variation of wax seals bearing the image of a tree (perhaps an attempt at extending my cold limbs out to far-off friends) and am unashamed to admit that I spent hours embellishing each with their own unique doodles and even a small playlist for every loved one I wrote to. It was a summer of giving and receiving as most of my correspondences were returned and then, funnily enough, most of my courses this semester centered around the act of letter writing. 

From the whirlwind epistolary narratives of Dracula or Lettres d’une Péruvienne to the intimate and often emotionally nebulous writings of Madame de Sévigné or John Keats, I couldn’t escape the immense influence of the letter. This was most definitely coincidental, but was also incredibly uncanny. 

My Romanticism & Private Life class, in particular, praised the importance of such an intimate means of correspondence. I believe that one of the most revelatory things I read about letter writing, presented by a man named Bruce Redford, was the idea that “The letter-writer is an actor, but a magician-actor who works on his audience by sustaining the illusion of physical presence.” 

Now, yes, I was aware of the amount of time and effort I placed into each letter I wrote, but I have to admit that I was floored by the sudden realization of how confidential letter writing was. Granted, nothing I wrote was ever so profound or revelatory, but the act itself of exchanging words and a messy stream of consciousness with a loved one was powerful in and of itself. 

Redford’s association of letter-writing as a spectacle rings oh so true especially in such (forgive me) unprecedented times. In an indefinite era in which everything is regarded with and propelled by fear and anxiety, I’m elated at the fact that I could put on a colorful, perhaps whimsical, magic show for loved ones with my silly words. Naturally, to put on any magic show, a lot of time, effort, and passion must be allotted so as to suspend the belief of reality. More specifically, letters were the segue and so-called secret trick to my prestidigitation of presence within a formerly unbearable absence. I sought to bridge a gap between two worlds. 

Who doesn’t love a good performance?