LETTER FROM THE EDITOR: PAUL MADONNA: SEPTEMBER 2011


To Let Future People Stay

It surprised me for only a moment to see how many love letters were written to loves lost. Where were these people when they were actually in love? Were they just too busy swooning and loving to write down their feelings? Were they too busy whispering and panting into their lover’s ear? It’s certainly true that most of us don’t know what we have until it’s gone. And that we have to lose valuable people at least once to learn to tune into our emotions enough to let future people stay. But I had hoped that someone would write a letter to a person who could actually receive it. That a letter might be written to a love that literally sat before them, that was worthy of writing loving, sappy words to. Instead, people wrote to the lost, the long gone, the unworthy—and they wrote to themselves.

And that’s why it surprised me for only a moment. Because love and love letters are two different things. Love is deep and magical and complex and intense; love letters are the lonely sorrowful cry in the otherwise dark and still night. Love possessed is expressed in silence and action, in contrast to love lost, expressed in the all too recognized mournful wail of the broken hearted.

So take it as a lesson—even if you frequently do whisper sweetness in your lover’s ear—write your lover a letter. You’ll touch their heart, but you’ll also blow their mind. Let the love letter be a celebration of what is had, not what was lost, and left behind.

Paul Madonna is an artist and writer. His book, Everything is its own reward, was recently released by City Lights Books. He also produces the weekly strips All Over Coffee and Small Potatoes. Learn more about his work here.

Response from the Project Director

I appreciate Paul's suggestion to write letters to those we love while we are with them, but I want to be clear that the Love Letter Collection is not just about appreciating the love we have in hand. The Love Letter Collections takes on all aspects of love – from the most heartbroken to the most fulfilled. As the project director, I've actually gone out of my way to encourage unrequited and lost love letters, since there is often nowhere else to send them. Because of this emphasis, the Love Letter Collection has become a sanctuary for a lot of unwanted, unsent, and unreceived love letters.

So Paul is right to note that many letters express love toward someone the writer is separated from - through time, distance, life circumstance and sometimes even death. But even though these emotions aren't operating the context of a current working relationship, the letters still express a love felt in the present tense by the person writing the letter. I would argue that this love, though unfulfilled, can still be "deep and magical and complex and intense" as Paul so nicely puts it, and can really affect a person's life.

I hope you will continue to submit all kinds of love letters: sad, frustrated, angry, happy, inspired, confused, passionate, despairing and fulfilled.

Thank you Paul for editing the letters, and for writing a provocative letter. You really got me thinking about the purpose of the Love Letter Collection again.

Cynthia Gray

the love letter collection