The Philosopher and the Sailor

(Note: this post will make more sense if you've read prior posts- Love Letters, and The Gift.)

I’ve finally finished reading the letters. How many? Well, Els and Frank were apart roughly six months out of the year, for four decades. Els wrote maybe three times a week, Frank probably once a week on average. So, that equals 3,840 letters, give or take a few.

Back when I first discovered them and spent a week or so reading as many as I could from random years (before I had yet to order them by date), I wondered, “When will I ever have time to read these?” Now, being pregnant, unemployed, and especially motivated to work on this project thanks to a small grant, not to mention an impending due date, I have been provided with the perfect window to settle in.

People ask me if I’ve been writing lately, and I tell them, with a slight sense of guilt, that mostly I’ve been reading letters. It’s easy to do. I take out a stack of them after I’ve done my morning journaling, and this often leads to the “just one more” mentality. I make it through a year, let’s say 1975, and then I notice how the next year—1976—is so much thinner than the previous, so maybe I’ll read one more year. Then, by the time I make it to 1977, I’ve practically made it through the whole decade, so maybe I should just finish the 70s off. But when I get to the 80s, I figure, this is the final decade to go, why not just finish them all? And in this way, I have plowed through, and saved much of the writing for this project for “later.”

Although I feel like I should be writing more than I have, reading all of the letters does actually feel necessary, as opposed to other procrastination methods like, say, Facebook. And there is something to be said for reading all the letters in one continuous swoop and absorbing the big picture of their correspondence, marriage, and life.

The big picture reveals some amazing, yet sad, tedious, and often painful reoccurring themes.

Let’s start with the ways in which we repeat ourselves. The ways in which we stay in situations for years or decades that we have so many misgivings about. The ways in which our minds feed on loops, and we constantly talk about the same things. The ways in which our lives and our dreams disappoint us. The ways in which, the older we get, the more our ideas of what is possible for ourselves and our paths seem to shrink.

Els started complaining about her marriage sometime in the mid-sixties when she was in her early forties -- about how lonely she was with him away at sea for so much of the year, and about Frank’s poor communication and his lack of support of her ideas and her writing. Her discontent continued to grow stronger, as did her accusations of his selfishness, verbal abuse, and controlling ways. I’d always known that they’d had problems in their marriage, but to read the steady progression of complaints, depression, and despair, letter after letter, has been sad and surprising to me. Could Frank, this man that I’d grown to respect and revere as an adult as one of the most generous and mellow of souls, really have been so selfish and demanding of his wife? How much of Els’s point of view am I to believe, especially when Frank’s letters offer little to deny nor support her claims? It is hard to not to sympathize more with Els. Since she wrote the most often and with the most detail, it has been easiest to see their story and marriage primarily through her lens.

One abbreviated version goes like this: Here was a man who chose to be away half the year at sea (working as a merchant marine), wandering through exotic ports and living a bachelor’s life, then coming back to home base for a few months to be nurtured and fed, before taking off to travel for a few months with his wife, who cooked and baked profusely each day inside the hull of their sailboat or out the back of their station wagon. He loved to read old classics and history, especially Joseph Conrad, and claimed to be content with his lot in the world. Determined to live the way he wanted to live, and not worry about the things he couldn’t save or change.

And here was a woman who stayed at home alone half the year alone, tending to the house on a frugal budget, writing to her husband about things she wanted to repair or stocks she wanted to invest in, given permission to do as she saw best, but always first seeking his approval. Wanting to prove that she was a good saver and wife, that she could be entrusted with his hard-earned money. At the same time, trying to forge a creative path for herself, to find a sense of purpose in her existence outside of the household duties. Becoming involved in various causes, but ultimately seeking something more. Increasingly bitter that she never birthed a child—a decision that seems to have been made by Frank. Becoming obsessed with various philosophies, but disillusioned by imperfections she found in each of them, none quite reflecting her precise worldview. Wanting to write her own book to solve this problem, and also starting to write more poetry. Yet her husband didn’t like her poetry, nor did he like her analytical mind that grasped at theories. So these were pleasures that she clung to and could not share with her spouse, passions in life that she felt she needed to defend.

More and more, it was as if they lived separate lives. “We don’t really communicate,” Els complained, “it takes two.” “I have to admit to myself that I am dissatisfied, that I have been a long time. Our way of life was your choice, not mine…” And, “I realize you like to always be on the move. Since we bought this house it has been home base to you but not home, you really don’t live with me except on the Hoko,” (their boat).

In the early seventies, Els got serious and wrote to Frank about getting a divorce. She was embarking on a new phase of her life, empowered and psychologically freed by her discovery of Transcendental Meditation and the several weeks she spent meditating in Northern California. Then, a year or so later, her talk shifted to getting a legal separation. Then, who knows what happened, almost all talk of separating disappeared. In most letters, you would not even know there is any discontent. They still call each other by names like ‘Lover’ and ‘Darling Wife. In fact, even in the letters where Els complains about their marriage, oftentimes in the very next paragraph she will go on to write in a chatty tone about the plants in the yard, her daily outings, or financial business, and sign off with love and affection. It’s almost as if this dialogue of discontent went on for so long that it grew to be one of many ongoing conversations, perhaps mostly carried out in her head.

Most of the time, it is hard to tell what was actually communicated because Frank would barely respond to her words directly. Els would write long diatribes about his shortcomings in their partnership or about her epiphanies about her life and the universe, which would be answered by Frank’s terse news of when they’d reach this or that port, and an occasionally descriptive travelogue recounting some new port. In all of his letters, all I can find that answers her pleas for a change is a line here or there of token acknowledgment, such as, “Some of the things you’ve said hurt my feelings but there isn’t anything you can’t say to me,” or “All I can say in reply to all you have said is that I love you and hope we can continue to live together the rest of our lives.” What woman wouldn’t go out of her mind if that was the kind of response she got from long letters where she’d poured out her heart?

Indeed, Frank always proclaimed his love and devotion and addressed her with terms of sweet endearment, and I never ran across a cruel word or tone in his letters, which makes me think that he couldn’t have been as verbally abusive as she implied. And yet, who knows what his words (or more likely, his silence) was like in person.

At a certain point, one cannot tell how seriously either of them took her words, especially once she’d backed off of her resolve to take charge with a divorce. And there is no way for me to know what was communicated during the months when Frank was at home. What was said in person. And what bonds of friendship, shared experience and understanding kept them together despite it all. After all, they both loved nature, simple pleasures, living frugally, and authenticity in people and art. They both were kind, curious, and compassionate people, even if these traits were manifested in different ways. Perhaps they were able to reach some resolutions, however temporary, before Els’s next wave of discontent arose. (Although I suspect that their in-person communication was not a whole lot better than their letter writing, for Els also complained of this.)

I know that from the beginning of their marriage, Frank warned Els that he was not much of a letter writer. And one can also forgive him a tad for belonging to a generation (or some might say species) of males who do not readily speak of their feelings. His letters are the most vivid and interesting when he is visiting a new port, describing his forays into the back streets and markets, and his encounters with locals in cities like Bombay, Valpairosa, Singapore, and Belawan.

And for whatever reason, his letters got more descriptive in the 1970s and 1980s, whereas they were much shorter in the 50s and 60s. Maybe he was finally warming up to this “letter-writing business,” or maybe he grew lonelier and more sentimental as he crept into middle age. “I tend to lose my identity when I’m out of touch with you for too long,” he wrote. Perhaps he’d already reached the peak of his wanderlust, and yet could not bear the thought of staying in one place and settling down at a 9-5 job.



As I read these letters, I go back and forth as far as who I sympathize with, or who I identify with more. Mostly, I find myself sympathizing with Els, even though her mind, her depression, and her obsession with philosophy and figuring out the universe, would surely have driven me crazy if I had to live with her. Yet from real life, I know that it is Frank that I identify with more closely as an adult, however closed off his emotional world was, or at least his ability to express it.

Probably I would have connected more to Els in my twenties, when I too was a tad obsessed with trying to name and define my spiritual path and system of beliefs. But once I found a certain level of trust in what I knew what was important to me in life, and could start to separate the difference in what I believed versus what I knew for myself, I eventually let go of the intense sense of struggle that had once surrounded so many of my finer spiritual questions. Perhaps I’ve simply have entered a phase where this focus doesn’t interest me so much, and maybe later down the road I will I return to those questions with a renewed sense of gravity. Maybe this is a common phase for those like me who are in a home-, family-, and career-building stage of their thirties; or maybe it is simply because I feel at peace with my life right now, and am supported by a wonderful partnership, and so I don’t feel as great of a need to cultivate meditation practices (besides writing, walking, and occasional yoga), to join spiritual groups, or to pray and connect with the greater source of life that feeds me—and that ultimately, behind my daily list of to-dos, I still am humbled and amazed by. Perhaps some day I’ll be struck by some great heartache or opening again that will reorient me in this direction, but for now, my spiritual life feels less heavy and esoteric, and more of a mellow and laid back constant, an ongoing intuitive response to what each day brings, from my heart.

But I’m getting ahead of myself here. All these generalizations feel somewhat glib and too simple in light of having just read almost 4,000 letters. There is so much more I could say, so much to digest and absorb, so many tangents to reflect on, and so much to take care not to summarize or surmise too quickly, as if these letters could ever tell the whole story.

Love Letters

I’ve been reading letters between a husband and a wife who lived half of their marriage apart. Letters that span over four decades, letters I found over three years ago in a cardboard box in the attic of the home that I inherited (see my old post: The Gift). Right away, I read dozens in a frenzy of new discovery, then quickly grew overwhelmed with how many there were, not to mention the tiny, hard-to-read cursive script. So I ordered them by date, then grouped them by year and sealed them in plastic bags which I stacked in a big blue bin to save for later. Now, in the last couple months, I’ve returned to them, and made it through two decades so far —the 1950s and 1960s.

Els and Frank wrote to each other as often as every other day, and were apart for as much as half the year. Frank was a merchant marine and spent much of his time delivering and picking up goods from Japan, Korea, Hong Kong, the Philippines, as well as ports in South America. For several summers he also fished for salmon up in Alaska, outside of Cordova or in Bristol Bay. Els stayed at home, saving and investing the money he earned. Sometimes she worked part-time as a secretary or an interior designer, but mostly she was good at being frugal and working on their home. She vigilantly planted and weeded; she picked and de-wormed hundreds of apples to make sauce or freeze slices for pies for when her husband returned; she scrubbed and waxed the floors, washed the walls, and scoured the toilet more than I’ll ever hope to do; she sewed her own clothes, baked her own bread and hung loads of laundry up to dry. She diligently reported to her husband how much she saved on used goods or home repairs, and how much she went without so that they could save his hard-earned money for when they were together. For, after all, she once said, let us not forget that money is the reason we are apart.

Sometimes, Frank came home for only a couple months, just enough time to be properly fed and made love to by his wife, before setting off again in the company of sailors. But other times, they’d have whole winters or summers together where they would take long road trips, for up to six months. A few years in a row they drove down to Mexico, camping in the back of their white Ford station wagon at R.V. parks on bluffs overlooking the sea, staying for months within communities of expats, mostly couples or families with young kids. Frank contented himself with reading, walking, and whittling at wood. Els would go to the market and haggle for local prices on produce and meat, then cook hearty, locally-inspired meals on their camp stove like pescado veracruz or beans, tortillas, and rice. Both of them loved to read, and Els loved to write. They collected pre-Colombian artifacts and read up on local history. Many of the things in their home probably came from Mexico—old brass candlesticks, stirrups, pottery, and blankets. They also collected arrowheads, awls, and other old Indian tools at favorite spots up and down the West coast. In the early sixties they started spending whole summers on their new sailboat (a converted Bristol Bay fishing vessel which Frank put a cabin on), the Hoko. From the Canadian shores of the Inside Passage they collected artifacts—old trading beads, tools, and baskets.

Els was a thirty-some-year-old housewife in the 1950s with no children and with a husband at sea. The older she grew, and the more time she spent alone, the more “out there” to many she became. She was interested in psychology, art therapy, classical music, Chinese art and poetry, the mind, belief systems, alternatives to religion. Ever since she was a child, she’d rejected her fundamentalist Christian upbringing, and some of her letters hint at a history of mental illness, as well as emotional abuse, in her family. As she grew older, she wrote more poetry and started to paint. She grew interested in transcendental meditation and local politics, even starting her own campaign against smoking in public places. In the absence of a career, close friends, or family, she reached out to join or spearhead various causes, causes that later might have become obsessions, obsessions that existed in her mind.

Frank also loved art and literature, but was less interested in philosophy and causes. It was what it was. If he would have been interested in philosophy, he might have realized just how Zen he was—but he wasn’t. The older they grew, the more it seems he simply tolerated Els’s interests, but did little to try and share them with her. If I had not known Frank in real life and had to judge him solely on his letters, I would find him rather dull. Els wrote long, intricate letters, sometimes filled with gossip and petty remarks, but always vivid with details, dreams, frustrations, hopes, and the wanderings of her mind. Frank rarely responded to the specific things she said unless it was of a practical nature; instead he mostly just stated where he was, what port they’d be in next and for how long, how he’d look for whatever items that she’d requested (stereo equipment, straw matting, Japanese bowls), and how she should feel free to spend money or invest as she saw fit. Then he’d apologize for his lack of verbosity and thank her for her many good letters. Sometimes he might profess his love or his increasing longing for her and would speak of how she was the center of his life. But just as often his letters felt distant and cold, a few hurried scribbles in contrast to her long, diary-like accounts. If I were Els, I would have grown frustrated with his brevity. After all, they had no email and made no phone calls while he was away; all they had was this air mail correspondence. Letters took about a week to get from Seattle to the many far-flung ports. They lived years of their lives in this staggered time, one week apart in their news.

I can only read so many letters at once before I get burnt out and need to take a break. I read quickly, flying past the mundane details about people I don’t know, seeking out passages that hint at the inner fabric of their marriage—why they never had children, how they convinced themselves this was the best arrangement, how they related to their parents and siblings, how they related to each other as emotional, spiritual, and sexual beings. I also search for clues about the house—what repairs did they make or plan to make, when did they plant certain bushes or trees that are now thirty feet high, what was the neighborhood like at that time, how did they enjoy or bemoan this space that I now call my home.

I am surprised to read how from the year they moved in, Els wanted to build an addition and finish the basement. Fifty-some years at this house, and they never accomplished either. She complained of how dark, dusty, and damp the house was, how there was a lack of storage space, and how the basement was filled with mold—the same complaints we have now. In latter years, they had plenty of money from investments to spend on these improvements, but it seems they barely put a dime into the cabin besides whatever repairs they could jimmy-rig on their own. Having grown up in the Depression, they were models of thrift and resourcefulness, but it’s still hard for me to believe that they never put more into their home—which may also represent what went neglected in their marriage.

It’s understandable that the cabin was not a priority to Frank, with him at sea for half of the year, and with them both away during the summers, cruising the Inside Passage from the 60s to 80s. Frank was a wanderer at heart, and Els, at least at first, was a willing and wonderful companion. If I lived alone in this house year after year with no career, and no close friends nor family nearby, without even the Internet to keep me company, I too would surely jump at the chance to pack up and get away into nature for the summer with my only lover and best friend.

***

As a child and as an adult, I looked at Els and Frank’s lifestyle with admiration and respect. Here were two adults, older than my parents’ generation, who bucked traditional societal roles and lived simply in a small cabin or otherwise traveled and followed their heart’s content. Here were two elders I was privileged to know who modeled so many things that I value in life: a love for literature and art; thrift and a homemade do-it-yourself aesthetic; healthy organic cooking, gardening, canning, and baking; a philosophical mind that questioned the status quo and so-called reality; and most of all, a love for the outdoors, for camping, sailing, and world travel.

All of this is still true—I still admire Els and Frank for who they were and for the life they led. But now, with access to this intimate window into their life through their letters, I have another view of them and their marriage. I see a woman who was incredibly lonely, grasping for purpose, and troubled by her past. I see a man who loved his wife, but who could be distant and inaccessible, and who for whatever reasons chose to be apart from her for half of the year. True, sailing was his bread and butter, but I can’t help but think that if he wanted to, if he loved her companionship more than he loved his capacity to be away, he wouldn’t have stayed at sea for so long.

Unfortunately, I don’t have as many records from the times they were traveling together, the times when they were probably the happiest. Instead, I’ve been left with a record of their gaps and distances, of their accumulated loneliness and longing. I’ve been left with a huge box full of letters, a testimony to a union that was tested, and to a love and loyalty proven yet stretched apart.