Welcome! You’ve reached Spark. Learn more here or just read on. If you received this from a friend, please join us by subscribing. It’s free! All you have to do is press the button below Inside this issue What do we have to lose in order to grow? Lost titles: revisiting Judith Viorst,
A long comment prompted by the question (thank you Betsy for asking it):
Lost love letters. Not many. Two or three I exchanged, when eighteen, with a girl named Ann who went off to university fifty miles away, whilst I continued to do my day job as a trainee animal technician, that I had started aged 15, when I left school. She middle-class, a vicar’s daughter living in Romford on the east side of London. Me, illegitimate and working-class, the grandson of a plumber, living on the west side of London. We met on a beach in Essex, where she was trying to light a fire made of driftwood and I, passing by, never a smoker, just happened to have a box of matches. Both of us staying by chance on the same caravan site. Together we collected more wood and lit the fire. She had a blanket. The rest happened and, against the odds, we survived six months as a couple of sorts before we kissed one last time and Ann boarded her train to Reading. I was going to see her the following weekend. I never did. She was intelligent, tactile and interested in me - which gave me confidence I never had before. It was during the fateful week after she went off to Reading University that we exchanged the letters. I loved her. She loved me. What could go wrong? Sadly, a lot. I simply couldn’t cope with her ambitions and our days apart, and I felt unable to pull up sticks and join her, so I decided it better to end it. God knows what my selfish act did to Ann. When I met my future wife I read Ann’s letters one last time before burning them. Later in life, I realised class was part of it. My first marriage lasted ten years. My second is coming up to fifty years, to a university graduate. Her dad was a foundry worker, her mum an insurance collector. Working class through and through. The expectations of others is probably the greatest burden we carry into adulthood, none are just as dangerous as many. The loss of Ann’s letters occurred years after I had placed them on that fire. What I lost in that act was a me that could have been. What I realised was that my life has been full of such moments; with a few more waiting in the wings as I count down the years, of that I am sure. The lesson I have learned is that ‘loss’ is what we make of it. As simple as that. As for Ann she remains one of the great loves in my life. Forever eighteen. - Robert Howard.
I didn't read the book, but I did watch the movie of The Lost Daughter. I was deeply moved and reminded of how difficult mothering while trying to be a fully realized person can be. How mistakes can be made. As for losing ... I've lost many things in my life that meant a great deal. One was when someone stole my entire jewelry chest which included the Dick Tracy watch my father bought me when I was five. We were dirt poor, this was a treasure, and he died two years later. It was the only tangible item I had from him. It was not replaceable. All the other items are long forgotten even though they meant something at the time. Like you, I also lost some of my writing. All the poems I wrote in my 20s were in a notebook that I lost one weekend in Alaska. It was 40 years before I wrote poetry again, but now I've had four collections published with another coming out in a few weeks. 40 years! But I wrote many plays and a novel or two during those years, so not everything was lost.
Ciao! 'La figlia oscura' is perhaps my favorite book by Elena Ferrante. I suggest you to read it before seeing the movie so as not to miss the surprises that the plot holds.
A long comment prompted by the question (thank you Betsy for asking it):
Lost love letters. Not many. Two or three I exchanged, when eighteen, with a girl named Ann who went off to university fifty miles away, whilst I continued to do my day job as a trainee animal technician, that I had started aged 15, when I left school. She middle-class, a vicar’s daughter living in Romford on the east side of London. Me, illegitimate and working-class, the grandson of a plumber, living on the west side of London. We met on a beach in Essex, where she was trying to light a fire made of driftwood and I, passing by, never a smoker, just happened to have a box of matches. Both of us staying by chance on the same caravan site. Together we collected more wood and lit the fire. She had a blanket. The rest happened and, against the odds, we survived six months as a couple of sorts before we kissed one last time and Ann boarded her train to Reading. I was going to see her the following weekend. I never did. She was intelligent, tactile and interested in me - which gave me confidence I never had before. It was during the fateful week after she went off to Reading University that we exchanged the letters. I loved her. She loved me. What could go wrong? Sadly, a lot. I simply couldn’t cope with her ambitions and our days apart, and I felt unable to pull up sticks and join her, so I decided it better to end it. God knows what my selfish act did to Ann. When I met my future wife I read Ann’s letters one last time before burning them. Later in life, I realised class was part of it. My first marriage lasted ten years. My second is coming up to fifty years, to a university graduate. Her dad was a foundry worker, her mum an insurance collector. Working class through and through. The expectations of others is probably the greatest burden we carry into adulthood, none are just as dangerous as many. The loss of Ann’s letters occurred years after I had placed them on that fire. What I lost in that act was a me that could have been. What I realised was that my life has been full of such moments; with a few more waiting in the wings as I count down the years, of that I am sure. The lesson I have learned is that ‘loss’ is what we make of it. As simple as that. As for Ann she remains one of the great loves in my life. Forever eighteen. - Robert Howard.
I didn't read the book, but I did watch the movie of The Lost Daughter. I was deeply moved and reminded of how difficult mothering while trying to be a fully realized person can be. How mistakes can be made. As for losing ... I've lost many things in my life that meant a great deal. One was when someone stole my entire jewelry chest which included the Dick Tracy watch my father bought me when I was five. We were dirt poor, this was a treasure, and he died two years later. It was the only tangible item I had from him. It was not replaceable. All the other items are long forgotten even though they meant something at the time. Like you, I also lost some of my writing. All the poems I wrote in my 20s were in a notebook that I lost one weekend in Alaska. It was 40 years before I wrote poetry again, but now I've had four collections published with another coming out in a few weeks. 40 years! But I wrote many plays and a novel or two during those years, so not everything was lost.
This was really beautiful (and powerful), Betsy 🙌
Ciao! 'La figlia oscura' is perhaps my favorite book by Elena Ferrante. I suggest you to read it before seeing the movie so as not to miss the surprises that the plot holds.
I noticed that the Through the Biblioscope site had several books or authors that had won Australian literary prizes of some sort.
what a powerful resource Spark has become - kudos, Betsy!