Time Travel: Letters from Steeleville

As a homesick middle schooler away at church camp for the first time, Grandma Steele's letters were a lifeline. She spoiled me with multiple letters during that one-week period. Each day after lunch, the camp director would call out the names of campers who had received mail that day. I received at least one every day. Her camp correspondence gave me a camp identity that I was proud of: recipient of high volume mail. It was an embarrassment of riches—the kind of embarrassment in middle school that can be endured, to be sure. 

I lived in the same town as my grandparents, so until this week away at camp, there would have been little reason for her to write me letters. Four years later, my family would move away and more letters would come my way.

I have a box devoted to our correspondence. Those letters from camp are missing and I am holding my breath that I will find them next time I visit my parents' home.

It is this grandma who passed down her love of words to me. Sitting down to read one of her letters was really like being in the same room with her. She wrote the way she spoke. This is a gift now that she is gone.

Another gift that time and perspective have given me is the ability to come to terms with the unusual family dynamics that emanated from this kindred woman. These dynamics were contradictory and confusing for me as a child. Being a daughter-in-law and being a grandchild at Steeleville produced two very different experiences. Twenty years of exploration and excellent counseling have taught me that two opposing perspectives can both contain truth. I was exposed to this lesson early in life and in recent years have come to understand its power. I have gushing experiences and memories of my grandma while others have less positive anecdotes. 

This is okay, as it turns out. Both of these things can exist together. I used to feel bad about it, but turning forty has changed that for me.

My experience with my grandma is my story, so it's the one I'm going to tell.

Of all the things I collected for my time capsule, the three letters my Grandma Steele sent me between my sophomore and junior years of college are the most poignant. They have the strongest time traveling power, too. Stowed away in those letters for me to rediscover again and again is my grandmother's love for me.

She sent money in nearly every letter she mailed. That's not why I love her letters, but one of the unique features of each letter is the fact that she would snip a short piece of masking tape and tape the currency to the inside of the letter or card. I'm not quite sure why she did it. Maybe she was afraid a gust of wind would be present when I opened the letter and the money would blow away. This was one of her quirks, and I love it. The money has long been spent, but those snips of masking tape are firmly in their place.

You don't have to have known her to get a sense of who she was as my grandmother in the letters below.

                                                                 “after a wild, rainy nite! Wednesday Morning

Hi Julie Dear!

A happy surprise in Steeleville's Mailbox. “Wuthering Heights” - Now here's the deal. YEARS ago, I saw that movie!! Sir Lawrence Olivier was the star, and (I think) Merle Oberon was the female lead. That show has “haunted” me for years- it was set in the bleak, moorish, cragy hills of Scotland, and for some reason, every once in a while, my mind has gone back to it. So, you can bet your boots, I'm already reading it. Emily Bronte goes into such detail, so it begins slow. But how delighted I am to have it here for my reading. Thank you. I'll really enjoy!

Can hardly believe it's time for you to be “packing out” for your third year at Graceland. Where did this summer go?...(flip flop) [her phrase for page turn]

What a blessing to be your Grammie at Steeleville

May God Bless

[postmarked May 23, 1995]

Hi Julie Dear!

Well, now, if I could speak French, we'd have a chat! ha. You're bilingual! How about that!

I know it was exciting in Canada, and opened up a whole new “world” for you to think about and enjoy remembering.

I am so delighted over the beautiful, inspiring, and “weepy” Grandma card you chose for me. I read and read it.

I called, but missed you at Graceland before you went on your trip. I knew you were busy, busy, but took a chance of reaching you. My love and prayers went every inch of the way with you.

You and Sarah are your “father's daughters” when it comes to flying!! So glad you both like to fly and are capable doing it “solo.” That means you'll always be able to get where you're going as you venture about.

I know it's good to be home...

We'll keep in touch via AT&T. Call anytime—and hang up, then I'll call you back in a few minutes so we can chat!

Again, Welcome Home! And I'm so proud of all the excellent work and activities you took part in at Graceland this year- and thanks for including me.

Always always what a joy and privilege to be your Grammie at Steeleville

May God Bless

Hugs

Hugs

[postmarked January 3, 1996]

She added musical notes next to her return address to signify the happy birthday song to me.

Letter accompanying a card:

Julie Dear,

If this can be the start of a year for you that will hold half of the love, the excitement, the imagination, the joy, and the love of our Dear Lord that YOU continue to give to me and others in your life, then You are in for a wonderful, wonderful year, my dear precious Granddaughter. It's such an honor to be YOUR Grammie at Steeleville

Hugs

Hugs

May God Bless

I re-read this letter and reflect on what she would think of how I've spent my 40^th year celebrating. She would clap her hands together and gush about all the fun things I've done. We would sit on her green “devan” and talk endlessly about each one. The conversation would be punctuated by stories from her own life and I would drink in every word. Since she wouldn't have access to my blog, I'd print out all of my essays about my activities and she'd read them. She'd pause, point at a particular line or phrase and tell me that she liked how I wrote that or ask me to tell her more about it. Just another one of her ways of communicating her love for me—caring about my words, my craft.

This daydream—it's a balm.

In case it isn't clear already, I miss this woman. Desperately. The idea that I should have to live the rest of my life without her feels like a great injustice to me. She understood me—my quirks and eccentricities—in ways that few in my life have. She reveled in the things that made me different from everyone else and her revelry helped me feel good about myself. It shored me up. She showed her affection for me in hugs, kisses, pats on my arm, and soothing words. She also nurtured me through our shared laughter. Oh my word, did we laugh! Her absence does not get any easier with time, but these letters she sent bring her right back to me. 

 

Time Travel: Circle of Friends

Here's another reflection from items that were part of my Time Capsule that I created in college and opened in 2010. You can read my first post here.

I scanned the bookshelves in the airport bookstore looking for some new company. I had just spent three weeks studying French in an immersion program in Quebec. We were back on American soil, and minutes before I had parted ways with the other American students who had accompanied me on this adventure. So much had happened in three weeks' time. I was a different person now, and I was beginning the re-entry process of speaking my mother tongue again. I was sandwiched between two languages. The French that had been so foreign was now readily accessible, but now there was no one to speak it to or with. My friends—the only ones who could possibly understand this strange space in my head—had gone on to their own gates. I was alone in my bilingual exhausted no man's language land. I missed them, and the time we'd spent together.

My eyes studied the titles and landed on Circle of Friends by Maeve Binchy. The title offered me the promise of new friendships and I took it to the counter. I read it on the plane, and the homesickness for my friends and my French speaking eased as Binchy's storytelling drew me in.

We arrived on campus after dark, tired from travel and scared about what was to come. We were given a quick orientation. “You may speak English tonight, but in the morning only French. For the next three weeks FRENCH ONLY. We will send you home if we hear you utter English.” It was daunting. I had saved the money my grandmother had given me to spend on college experiences, and I had no intention of getting sent home.

We were shuttled to our dorms. Poor Joey, the only guy among the four of us, went to his empty dorm. The three of us girls had the benefit of being assigned the same suite.

The four of us stood in the hallway the first morning scared and energized. Each of our French language abilities were different, so we were assigned separate classrooms. Due to differing school calendars, we were entering the program three weeks late. We were the “new kids” entering class mid-session. It was terrrifying, but there was no going back. We said our au revoirs and stepped through the doorways into these brave new worlds.

I had the least French instruction, so I did well to blurt out, “Bonjour! Je m'appelle Julie Steele. Je suis americaine.” I was welcomed and offered a seat.

The Quebec accent is so different from the Parisian accent that I was accustomed to in class in the States. It's like the southern drawl of English. The Canadian mouth forms French sounds differently than in France. It required every bit of concentration to make it through each class.

We decompressed each evening in our apartment dormitory unwinding from an exhaustive day of listening and speaking French. We broke the rules. We spoke ONLY ENGLISH when we were together out of earshot of our professors. Our French suffered in those hours, but our young twenty-something selves had big ideas to ponder. Too grande were the ideas for our wee petite French vocabularies. And so French it was by day, and English by night. Twenty years later, I can still conjure the warmth and caring and hilarity of those conversations and wouldn't trade that for anything.

We ate lunch with our American professor Mme. Jaeger every day and downloaded the morning's lessons. In broken French I told her, “I have so much to tell you and no words to express it all.” She smiled and told me to just start and she would help me. Ten minutes into the conversation I realized I was speaking to my teacher in fluid, fluent French. It was exhilerating.

I remember very little about the plot even though I've read Circle of Friends twice. What's important is that it's the mental postcard that conjures memories that will last a lifetime. It reminds me of the souvenirs of that trip: friendship, French language, courage, and determination.

Time Travel and Hope for the Future

Somewhere between my sophomore and junior years I began collecting items to place in a time capsule. I had made one in third grade as a Brownie and remembered how fun it was to think about opening it when I was in eighth grade. You know, when I was “really grown up.”

Besides that elementary brush with the future, the idea of a time capsule came out of thin air. I was heartbroken and couldn't see how my future was going to take shape. For a year, I collected movie stubs, photographs, news clippings of current events, catalog pages of styles that caught my eye. I wanted to document who I was at the time, and project forward who I might be in the future.

I collected items for a year and then sealed the box and labeled it: To be opened when I am 35. Just like that third grader years before, I really couldn't imagine yet what my life would look like at 35.

I'm beginning to understand that my 4040 list is another version of that time capsule. It is a declaration of hope. The list has been my way of reminding myself that while I can't see what the future holds, what this new decade has in store for me, I have hope that good things are to come. It is the choice to take an active rather than passive role in my own life.

I've always intended to write about the time capsule. What I collected and what the significance of the items were. In the five years since I opened it, I haven't felt ready or up to it, but now I do. I won't write about EVERY object in the collection. That would get long and boring, but I do think there is some great stuff to share.

The best way to kick off this series is with the letter I wrote to myself:

June 19, 1995

Dear Julie,

It is now 15 years since I sealed this time capsule. In those 15 years much I'm sure has happened, but since at the time of this letter those things haven't occurred, I want to refresh your mind of who you were at 20.

You were a young woman with enthusiasm, intelligence, warmth. You were (and hopefully still are) an attractive woman. Thin, but finally more fashionably so.

You loved life! You knew very much who you were, but was never satisfied. Growth, optimism, laughter described you. You were very much in love with a man named _________, and was patiently waiting to see how that turned out.

You were very goal-oriented, spiritual, reflective/introspective.

Travel, language (French), independence and self-sufficiency were big themes for you at that time.

Congratulations on the growth & successes you've seen since then.

-Me

I hear hope in those words, don't you? I couldn't begin to tell 20-year-old Julie what she was in for back then, and I'm really glad I couldn't. All the bumps and bruises, joys and happiness have made the future worth living into and waiting for with expectation.

Here's to some time travel!