January 18, 2004
Transcription
I am transcribing some letters at the moment, completely immersed in a compelling correspondence. It's a little like reliving the events described.
Doing this, calls to mind one of the weirdest, creepiest things that my mother ever did. She transcribed my letters, which were written home to her, from 1958 until September 1963. She rewrote them by hand, in a blue, spiral bound notebook. This was no small task, since I was an only child of that bygone era, and considered it my duty to write home weekly (at the very least). The notebook is 450 pages long. I asked her what she did with the originals. She threw them away, along with letters after September 1963, of which there were some.
My transcribed letters are full of 1. cultural activities (even now I am impressed by my high level of participation ) 2. reports of exotic encounters with people who did things like put pineapple in their gourmet rice (we did not do that, or even think about that, in the Midwest) 3. The condition of my body, specifically it's minimally fluctuating weight, with which I seem obsessed. (I do not mention the condition of my health, hair, uterus or skin, so I must have thought my mother would be interested in this aspect alone) 4. Profuse thanks for various items of clothing that had been lavished upon me.
5. Being smitten by love --- the details of an idealized transference.
All in all, an interesting glimpse into my late adolescence and slightly beyond.
I would have welcomed the letters, had they been given to me all tied up in blue satin ribbons --- it was the transcription part that gave me the creeps. It felt like my mother crawled into my life and lived it vicariously on all those long evenings of copying. (I have to admit, I did leave out a few major things, so my life sounded, on paper, a bit better than it really was at the time.)
The transcribed notebook is a metaphor for the way my boundaries were invaded. The notebook was, after all, a gift that had taken hundreds of hours to create, and it was well intentioned. But it felt so intrusive? To this day, I am sometimes confused about what is and what is not a violation of my boundaries. Take my word for it, differentiation from my mother was a challenge; one that took weapons of mass destruction to accomplish. I'm still not finished.
Posted by Dakota at January 18, 2004 08:43 AM