What I’m Reading:
You can listen to the audio version of this Musing here.
“To paraphrase a prophet: Letters are structures, not events. Yours give me a place to live inside.”
This week I read a beautiful novel, cowritten by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone. This Is How You Lose the Time War takes the form of love letters that travel across time between two unexpected lovers, Red and Blue—agents on the opposite side of a long war.
Their relationship starts with a single letter, from Red to Blue. When Blue returns that first letter, she says, “But here I’ve repaid your letter with my own. Now we have a correspondence.” This sounds straightforward enough. Back-and-forth communication is, indeed, a correspondence.
But why correspond? What is the nature and purpose of correspondence? In this case—and perhaps in most cases—the beginning of a correspondence is the beginning of a relationship. For Red and Blue, it is the beginning of an intense and exploratory one that changes them both. Deep into their correspondences one of them says, “I have built a you within me, or you have. I wonder what of me there is in you.”
Given that they are on opposite ends of the war, it takes some time before they trust—much less, love—each other. At the beginning of their exchanges, Blue implores, “What do you want from this, Red? What are you doing here? Tell me something true, or tell me nothing at all.”
It is here that the value of the letter comes into focus. Through the pen, they can open their worlds and their truths to one another in a way that is rawer than it would be otherwise. Red answers, “You asked me to tell truths. I have. What do I want? Understanding. Exchange.”
What I’m Thinking About:
I have often said that I don’t know how I feel about something until I write about it. Red says that what she is looking for in the letters is understanding. At first blush, we assume that she wants to be understood by Blue. She probably does. But we can also imagine that she wants to become intelligible to herself, as well.
In a beautiful passage that sticks with me because it resonates with my own experience of writing, the authors say, “Her pen had a heart inside, and the nib was a wound in a vein. She stained the page with herself.” She poured herself onto the page. For her lover. Perhaps for herself.
In this book, the letter serves as a bridge between Red and Blue, it gives them an understanding of each other and of themselves. This experience is profound and as such, not easily translatable. Indeed, one of them says, “I keep turning away from speaking of your letter. I feel—to speak of it would be to contain what it did to me, to make it small.” The letters contain within each of them an expansiveness that is only palpable to its intended recipient.
What I’m Excited About:
Even before reading this book, I was thinking about the lost art of letter writing; the paper, the unique penmanship of its author, the knowledge that the person writing the letter has touched the very same paper I hold in my hand.
Perhaps I show my age when I wax nostalgic about the handwritten letter, but I don’t mind. Some nostalgia is worth indulging in.
I was hoping that you experience some of this nostalgia as well, and that you’d be interested in exchanging love letters. I have created some beautiful postcards that I would love to personally send you with a note, a spray of perfume, a picture—tangibles that you can keep with you long after (or between) the ephemeral tryst we share.
Would you like a letter? A handwritten postcard? A touch of tenderness in an otherwise cold season? I am now offering all of these, and have more information and an order form on my website.
Booking & Availability: 
I will be in Pittsburgh for the remainder of 2023. I will be taking bookings in Pittsburgh for all of December.
In January of I have two trips planned. I’ll be in New York City from Jan 11-14. My trip is almost entirely booked, I probably only have time for 1 or two more appointments while I’m there. If you’re in NYC and would like to book, I suggest you reach out soon!
I’ll also be going to Buffalo, NY from Jan 26-28.
So far, I haven’t booked any other travel for 2024. I would love to visit cities I’ve never toured before! I have no idea why, but Detroit, Seattle, and Columbus spring to mind. If I haven’t come to your city and you’d like to see me, you could consider booking a sponsored tour! You can find out more about those on the Patronage page of my website. Feel free to shoot me an email with suggested cities: Cybele_rain@protonmail.com.
