Love Letters

I'd have loved getting this kit when I was a kid! Its former owner used up all the jewels, feathers and bows, but there's still plenty of hearts for a whole passel of Valentines.

I wrote a love letter yesterday.  Enjoyed it so much, I think I'll write several more between now and Valentine's Day.  No, darling friends, I am not dating.  I am solidly in love with my life, and when I'm not painting walls, the bookazine is my all-consuming passion.  Not all love notes are romantic, you know.  And not all love notes are planned.

I was intending to spend a couple of hours Sunday evening moodling with my art journals, and decided to go change into jammies and slippers, so I could go from journalling, to watching Downton Abbey (Masterpiece on PBS, if you are one of the few who hasn't been hooked), and then straight to bed.  I don't know where the train of thought started, but as I was pulling on my ocelot slipper boots (very near and dear, as you know by now if you even occasionally read this blog), I found myself in a conversation with my oldest brother, Ramon.  The exact words have faded as quickly as any dream, but it was something about getting older, and we probably ought to touch base a bit more often.  Just because I talk aloud when nobody is present doesn't mean I'm talking to myself.

Ramon and I have very different views of the world, and for personal reasons he chose to disengage from most of our family.  He never said "good bye" to me, he just didn't answer letters.  Of course, he never had answered them, so it took a few years to figure he probably was intentionally out of contact.  I let it go.  I knew where he was living, occasionally heard from others who had visited with him or had heard news of him, and I had him where I'd always had him, tucked safely in my heart.

Ramon was exactly six when I was born, and family lore has it that after a week, he asked if he could return his birthday present.  I guess at some point he must have gotten over the disappointment of getting a sister instead of a BB gun, because he became Super-Brother for many years.  I've another brother, Jesse, who's closer in age, and he and I played together more, shared art supplies, did our homework together, shared friends a bit, even.  Jess and I were friends.  Ramon Big Brothered me.  He piggy backed me around the house when my leg was in a cast (though I could perfectly well walk).  He took me to art class and the park on the "pumper seat" of his bicycle.  He tried to boss me around when our parents weren't home (which no, was not usually very successful).  He let me move to Montana with him and his young family when I was first leaving the nest.  He chased off guys before I knew they were on the doorstep, according to Mama.

I've a heart full of memories of him dancing like a wild one in his logging boots, leaping on a friend's horse to chase down her escaped cow, (though I'm pretty sure Daisy May could have been chased down by a toddler on a tricycle), rolling his eyes at my teenage taste (or lack of it) in music...so many snapshots and clips, that he could never be forgotten.

It's easy to let time slip by, but I figure twenty years is probably long past long enough to wait for his reply to the last letter.  So, instead of journalling, I sat down and wrote my big brother a letter about what I've been up to, asked a bit about his life, tucked in a few photos, and addressed the envelope.  Last I heard, he's still in the same area, and it's the sort of place, if he's within fifty miles, someone will see he gets it.  We're getting older, and memory gets lost, and sometimes letters do, and what if he's been waiting for my reply to his last one?  Or maybe he lost track of time, too.  Have you?  It's a good month for love letters.