I’m a lot of things, but cute ain’t one of ‘em..

 by Michelle Hayward

I once had a relationship with a man who would regularly send handwritten postcards through the mail, and scribble little love notes within the pages of books; how lovely it was to get to page 96 and find an unexpected message inscribed in the margin of my current read. 

Yet despite all this attention to detail, I was shocked when the same guy failed to acknowledge my birthday.  He said it was the everyday gestures that mattered in life – that he’d rather express his feelings when it felt right rather than to mark the reoccurring date of a past event.  And in light of his usual thoughtfulness, how could anyone argue with that?  I totally got it - he was absolutely right! Although I still wasn’t clear why the miserable rotten bastard had accepted a birthday card and gift from me two months earlier?

Detecting my dissatisfaction, he scurried off and returned with a large flat box.  Intrigue rapidly turned to horror as I unveiled a giant padded birthday card, embossed with a hybrid elephant-bear. I was curious, and quite frankly annoyed, as to why he thought I was a gigantic padded-card mule-bear type of gal in the first place? (And I’m not going to make you relive the bastardisation of the poetic form encountered inside the thing – we’ve all had cause to visit the dark place that is Hellmark.)

Look, I’m hardly an arbiter of good taste myself, but I really don’t do cute.  How could he not know that?  How could such a seemingly profound person, send such a vomit inducing nylon card to me?  I wondered if my demands had altered his perception of me. I began to hope he found nylon teddy-bear pictures appealing; it was better than thinking I did. But then did I really want to spend my life with a man who found nylon teddy-bear pictures appealing?  Perhaps he was trying to prove a point – of course he was being ironic!

The whole fiasco culminated in me melting down into a semiotic crisis of contradictions.  Sending the wrong card became more damaging than not sending a card at all.  Believe it or not, I don’t usually care much for my own personal anniversaries, but perhaps on this occasion, I made it matter.  I didn’t really care about a birthday card; I wanted to know if he loved me. The card suggested he did (‘I LOVE YOU’ was written on the front).  But now the card had put me right off the man.

I took his postcards out of the drawer. They were standard blank postcards containing a few fairly innocuous words ‘Thinking of you always xx’. I flicked back through the novel notes - the same.  I realised it was the method in which the messages had been presented that had impressed me, rather than the messages themselves. Paradoxically, that’s how greeting cards generally function – their sentiment is expressed in the act of sending the message, rather than writing it.

In the end, this issue was more than our relationship could withstand; a fluffy animal – an unexpected everyday gesture, eradicated all hope of irony.  All the same, I do regret repeatedly stabbing his forever hippo-bear with my eye-liner pencil. 

Afterwards, I told everyone we had separated because we were unable to settle our artistic differences.  He told everyone I was a nightmare psycho bitch from hell and told me never to darken his door again...

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Love Letter

Writers and poets have written letters for centuries; declarations of their love scribed on parchment, sealed inside an envelope and sent. But in a world that is progressively dependent on technology, is the tradition of letter writing – or more specifically the expression of love – under threat? Perhaps the more complicated aspects of life blind us, distort that which is simple. With our lack of sight we lose our way, and forget how to listen to the faint murmurs of heart.

For in a world that is reliant on the material (things of monetary worth), and which favours the concrete over the abstract, the concept of ‘love’ has become a cliché. As modern poets, we fear being clichéd, thus perhaps a part of us fears the subject of love... It would seem far easier to write of pain and sorrow – of a breakup, of the darkness in our minds – than to write about the joy.

I, myself, have only written a fraction of poems that could assert to have ‘love’ as their theme. And they are self-conscious, clumsy stanzas – worried of straying into a clichéd landscape: saying too much (flouting Grice’s Maxim of Quantity), only being able to speak in hyperbole (flouting Grice’s Maxim of Quality) and resulting in a poem of obscurity (flouting Grice’s Maxim of Manner). Therefore, I tend to find myself avoiding the subject of love – or tripping ‘head over heels’, if I dare to venture too near...

However, this week’s theme (‘Priceless Words’) made me think of love – and the letters that allow it to be preserved for years to come. Perhaps spending a week in Devon with my Nan has made me sentimental – but as she retold stories about her and my Grandpa’s holiday in the Lake District, it was impossible not to be moved. They were stories I’d never heard before, stories that only my Nan could tell and for me, at least, they are priceless.

I could conclude this blog post with one of Keats’ letters to Fanny Brawne, or Lord Byron’s declarations to Countess Teresa Guiccioli – in fact there is a multitude of love letters to quote from – but I’ve chosen instead to share a letter that my Grandpa wrote to my Nan while they were courting. My Nan, at the time, looked after the children of a doctor and his wife. She went with them on holiday for two weeks to the Durley Hall Hotel, Bournemouth – and my Grandpa wrote to her daily.

(15.07.1949) Friday 9.PM.

Hello my Sweetheart.

Thank you again for another letter, if the postman missed me one morning I would run him all round Coventry.

You ask me what I have been doing, well, I’ll let you into a secret, I am being miserable all the time. Don’t think I am blaming you, darling, because just think how nice it will be when you come back. I think it will have been worth it, don’t you?

Look darling, don’t bother to buy any presents because no one expects any, also don’t bother about Robert because it is his birthday in August, so it will be as well to wait for that. We can buy him something then. You know I don’t want you to buy me anything, as long as you love me that is all I shall ever want, darling.

Well, my sweetheart, we have got the first week over so the next one shouldn’t be too bad. I’m looking forward to a week tomorrow darling, are you!

Don’t worry about the camera, sweetheart. I’m sure it is alright, it has never let anyone down yet. I’ve booked up for Skegness on the Friday, I hope that will be alright for you. I wanted to book for the Monday, but as usual I was too late.

Have you decided what you are going to wear to come home in? Also, what you are doing about your case?

I think I shall go to the Forum tomorrow night, but I don’t suppose I shall enjoy it as I won’t be able to put my arm around you and feel your head on my shoulder. By the way, what do you mean about saving you a lot of kisses, you know I haven’t anyone else to give them to and what’s more I don’t want to give them to anyone else. You had better buy yourself at least six sticks of lipstick because you will need that many for Saturday alone.

But no joking sweetheart, I do love you more than I can tell and next Saturday is the only day I have been looking forward to since you went away. Will you marry me darling?

Well sweetheart, that is all for now so night, night and God Bless you, darling

all my love

George

P.S. Hurry Home.

Even after death words have the power to survive – to speak a voice that we thought we’d never have the opportunity to hear – and for that reason, words can be some of the most priceless (and precious) things in our lives

Thank you for reading,

Lar

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