7:11pm At My Desk

So I write another letter.

I love you very much. You are the city I live in; you are the name of the month and the day. I float, salty and heavy with tears, barely keeping my head above water. I seem to be sinking, but even there, underwater-where the phone doesn’t ring and rumors don’t reach, where it is impossible to meet you-I will go on loving you.

I love you, yet you force me to hang onto the running boards of your life. My hands are freezing. I’m not jealous of people: I’m jealous of your time. It is impossible not to see you.
So what can I do when there is no substitute for love? You know nothing about the weight of all things. 

--Viktor Shklovsky, Zoo, or Letters Not About Love

Dear A,

Sometimes, when I'm simply going about my day as usual, phrases pop into my head. They come from any number of places: songs I've listened to, things I've read on street signs, or lines from a book. Recently the phrase, "You know nothing about the weight of all things" has been coming to me several times a day. At first I just let it sit there and didn't pay too much attention until I would become distracted by something else and forget about it.

But today, when it came to me while I was watching re-runs of The Office, I decided to pause mid-episode and Google it because I couldn't for the life of me remember where I'd heard it.

Much to my delight, the all-knowing Internet reminded me that this phrase comes from a book I read a couple years ago called Zoo, or Letters Not About Love by Viktor Schklovsky. I first heard about this book from a girl in one of my writing workshops at UCSD. The concept intrigued me and I had it sent to the UCSD library from UC Davis so that I could read it.

I've told you about this book before, actually. But in case you have forgotten, I'll remind you. The book is about a man who loves a woman, but she does not love him back. Eventually she moves away and he asks if he can write her letters. She says that he can, as long as they are not love letters. So, he writes to her about the weather, the view from his apartment, politics etc. but all the while the reader can tell that there is love for this woman interlaced in his words.

As I sit here, committed to writing at least one letter a day (to you), I find it serendipitous that this phrase weaseled its way into my mind. I'm trying not to write you love letters since I'm not quite sure how they will be received, but when you love someone, all letters to that person are love letters, even if they're just about the weather.

Love, M