by Sylvia Plath
until friday,
your very own
sylvia
TO Gordon Lameyer
Wednesday 4 August 1954*
TLS, Indiana University
2.05 p.m.
dearest gordon . . .
indulging the liberal and unscheduled side of my most presently disciplined nature, I am seated in comfortable deshabille at my desk, listening to sentimental lyrics waltzing out from the radio, after a light sandwich lunch preparatory to going to bed for my afternoon nap, which is always seductively pleasant, since thoughts and dreams drift toward you intuitively on the grammatic wings of imaginative subjunctives . . .
metaphorically, I feel now in the position of a prisoner chained to a galley going through the bluest of mediterranean seas: I have a job (for which I volunteered, actually) which sucks up all my strength and concentration and powers of motion, and, even as I drop in bed numbed by fatigue, yet insatiably demands more. the tourists on the galley sip scotch on the rocks, gaze dreamily at the tiltingwhite gulls and the vague, verdant shores, skim through all the books ever written, indulge in voluptuous love as the evening sifts down in purple levels of passion to the paradisal bizarre lyrics of oboes and flutes, guitars and mandolins. the damnable aspect of the situation is that I could be one of the most appreciative of intellectual gourmets (as I hope to, someday) but the bread-and-water discipline I’ve chosen is one of those necessary means to a desired end . . . the ability to expand and multiply horizons of experience and perception . . . and yet it is a bittersweet agony to see swann’s way,* look homeward angel,* as I lay dying,* the enormous room,* shaw, ibsen, o’neill, and the rest, languishing unread on my bookshelves.
the above is self-rationalization (and commiseration) which is necessary sometimes before I throw myself back into the position of a healthy filly turned into a beast of burden, with blinders, and a cartful of words to carry to a german roget.
something, among others, of more note than the hours spent in widener getting tense over tenses: had a conference with my german prof today, and even though I barely managed a B (which was rather a relief even so) on my midyear, said that he would like to groom me for better things . . . and was very helpful and encouraging. I figure that if I got a bare B having lost half my blood I should do better being back to full capacity again. I’ll work hard this weekend so I’ll really be able to enjoy jaffrey, the weekend of the 14th. the next weekend, however (the 21st), I won’t be able to get away from cambridge because I have a part of my final that saturday morning at 9, and will also have to study intensely for my final exam on wednesday the 25th . . . after which I shall optimistically turn hedonist, even if I have to read a little german daily to keep up and increase my vocab . . I’m going to read and read away at the books I have piled up here and at home . . . also, I love it so here, and have so little relaxed time to saturate myself with the minor pleasures and daily epiphanies of life that I may just stay at the apartment into the middle of september to cook and read at widener and observe the plethora of vivid details of life which I generally have to ignore for the sake of economy of time . . . perhaps I can entertain you here for a dinner or two . . . I’d really love the chance to hold forth as hostess in my own temporary domicile . . . and if you’re in charlestown navy yard perhaps you could even come over during the week . . .
the radio is throbbing with a colloquial spiritual now all about how “you just didn’t happen friend, God planned you that way”, the streetcars are streaking by beyond the venetian blinds like grating orange carrots, the leaves are lyric scallopings of greenblack against a luminous gray sky, two clocks are ticking, and the dark spinach-green color of the curtains happens to match the keys of my crackling typewriter (which last observation is the epiphany, or minor revelation, of the day) . . . monday I had a reaction vs. the weekend clutter of the apartment that always greets me on return, so I created an esoteric dinner (apres votre mere!) beginning with jellied consomme in champagne glasses, an elegant compote of sliced peaches, grapes, cherries and apples marinated in sherryandlemon dressing, cheese and crackers, chocolate cake and hot coffee . . . all of which made me feel that even if I didn’t have time to originate color and taste with the art of words and paint, I could at least sublimate in the functional world by exotic menus . . .
tuesday was one of those sopping soggy anesthetic rainy days when it doesn’t begin to pour till you’ve left the house without your umbrella and raincoat . . . I shivered and growled at noon as I hurried home in the cold deluge, soaked to the skin, with my feet squashing unpleasantly in the rain puddles in my shoes . . . nancy greeted me in an equally saturated state at home, and we decided that our physical and psychic states demanded pampering, so we each put on one long wool knee sock as we had only one pair between us, to give the illusion of warmth, turned on a delightful program of classical music, made deluxe peanut-butter sandwiches spiced with onion, mayonaisse, bacon, and experimented with tall hot toddies which were delectable and most enlivening . . . later in the afternoon we went to a scholarship tea at the harvard union and gorged on sherbet punch and tollhouse cookies while talking with harvard officials . . . tonight we’re going to an affair given by one of nan’s instructors to meet faculty members on a personal basis, which should be fun . . . at least, after I’ve taken my nap . . .
all this to catch up with only two days . . . but there is so much more I want to learn to share with you, the minutest and the most colossal . . . everything from stream-of-consciousness impressions to the more logically thought out ideas and problems.
even in the midst of this (the radio is now being gaily suggestive and some slick guy is crooning: “life would be a dream, if I could take you up to paradise, doo-ah, doo-ah, life would be a dream sweetheart”*) I revolve the universe of possibilities and probabilities involving you and I and the dream of we . . . and ideas come, and questions, and hazardings about all the contingencies that depend upon other contingencies . . .
thinking back, of how dear you were to agonize through all the german with me . . . perhaps as difficult a situation as would a-rise if we ever studied side by side (which I hope we’ll be doing for the rest of our lives) as we were dealing with mere mechanics here (except for the rather poignant story about Death and his godson, and the enormous subterannean cave of lifelights) when, even when I’m plunged into the as yet obscure depths of my thesis, I’ll at least be involved in ideas and philosophy . . .
so many ifs and on-the-other-hands arise as I become as unflinchingly practical and objective as I can about the quite entrancingly unobjective process of growing to love you to newer depths and breadths and heights from day to day that I cannot help but wish that you were here by my side to discuss, analyze and project plans with me . . . already I have innumerable things to talk about with you . . . and I have become so spoiled by your weekly arrival that I can’t really believe you won’t be up this weekend, too . . .
oh, darling, there is so much love in me for you, intrinsically, and for you as a symbol of all I love in life that I want to express this most blazing and potent content of affection in new and increasingly complete forms of love and thought and communication . . . a long, lingering kiss for your magnificent mouth . . .
aufwiedersehen . . .
sylvia
TO Gordon Lameyer
Thursday 5 August 1954*
TLS, Indiana University
thursday, 2.20 p.m.
most adored one . . .
if you could be here at this moment with me we would share delight, I think, looking out of our study window, to see the big silver rain suddenly come down, with its inexplicably delectable wet spattering and splashing sounds that take on the tones of the objects rained upon . . . metallic on car tops, rustles like taffeta in the flat leaves, melodic trickles down the drainpipe . . . and now the young mother comes running laughing up the walk, her skirts sodden, her eyes crinkled up with laughter and raindrops, pushing a fat edible blond baby in an open carriage . . . a
nd after her waddles the panting possessor of a bedraggled baby poodle, breasts and hips lost in rolls of fat, swaying in her hurry as if she were balancing on the tilted deck of a ship about to sink . . . and the discreet squares of the red tile walk are, indeed, awash with rollicking rivulets, giddly imitating the canals in venice . . .
and even as I try to create for you a verbal, quick watercolor sketch of my environment, the rain diminishes, while my words increase . . . and I am again happily unclad at my desk, wanting to talk with you before I tumble sleepily into bed for my nap, into the tantalizing dark limbo of dreams where the warmth of my own drowsy body becomes the warmth of your arms, and I think how, (with the intuitive release of the beginning rain, with the plaintive musing piano dreams of debussy,) wishable it would be to make love to you with it raining all around, and on the roof and on the windows and on the ships at sea, with it so dearly lovable to be enclosed in the solar system of your universal embrace . . .
somehow, with all the difficult and dark things that have happened to me, I seem to be able to maintain a healthy, productive optimism, which eventually manages to work out crises and problems, transmuting them into positive events, such as art of instructive philosophical development . . .
in my last letter to you (was it only yesterday?) for example, I may have sounded tired and have seemed to resent my stoic program . . . but today, even still being sleepy, I have been acutely and positively happy (kay starr* is now brassily singing “if the sun should tumble from the sky, if the sea should suddenly run dry, if you luhved me, ree-ly luhved me, let it happen, I won’t care, let it happen darling, I won’t care”* . . . and it becomes satirical counterpoint to the very deep, very infinite emotion I will spend the rest of my life trying to communicate to you by love, words, actions . . . and every method of expression known to man . . . and woman . . . I am glad, though, that I can appreciate the burlesque coarsenesses of existence, seeing them through the double lens of vision . . . enjoying them, yet having a sort of aesthetic distance which will let me use them as tools without their using and victimizing me . . . I can like jazz, blatant syrupy love lyrics, dirty jokes, bartenders, taxi drivers without any sense of superiority or patronizing pride, quite honestly, and simply talk that language . . . but in the final analysis I guess I want, like Eliot, to refine the dialect of the tribe . . . ) because I discovered
(that last long parenthetical expression reveals the influence of german sentence structure upon my own)
but today suddenly how I might be able to have two things which I thought were incompatible . . . and the prospect of continually eating cake and continually having more of it always appeals to the feminine-logic side of my nature . . .
you know, last weekend, I told you about how I wanted to give myself an (I think) unnecessary, yet indicative, test, and cut away all the accessory males that have, for the last five years, crowded my life, and give up those countless bull sessions and tête à têtes which I have hitherto rationalized and accepted as “platonic” friendships, never consciously admitting that even seeing a boy with no physical relationship whatsoever was a latently romantic or sexual situation (which was brought so drastically home to me last week!)
anyhow, to sum up, I felt that it would be somewhat of an artificial situation to cut all male contacts out of my life, because I would like to appreciate men as intellectual thinking human beings, and converse with them as such . . . but I lost my eve-like naivté with a traumatic shock last week, when I realized that I might have only comradely intentions, while my “comrade” might have totally different expectations of our meetings.
what to do? stoically give up the possibility of having anyone of the male sex for a friend? how to combine mental conversational stimulation with a truly innocent and unambiguous situation? well, today after german class, I found myself in a good discussion with three fellowstudents; a young catholic priest, an atheist jew, and a small college boy: all male, yet none of whom I would ever care to “date” in the sense of a tete a tete, but all of whom I enjoyed together as conversational companions. well, it occured to me that if I gave a party for about ten of these people at the apartment and acted as a hostess (always wishing that you were the host with me) all these people would enjoy themselves en masse, and I would achieve my ideal of holding entertaining “salons” without compromising myself in anyway with anyone whatsoever. so, tentatively a week from this friday, I am planning a dinner at noon at the apartment, to which all guests will contribute some part of the food, and, of course, stimulating conversation . . . already plans are dancing in my head for a huge bouffet, with delectable varieties of meat, fish, hors d’ouvres, desserts, and father delair* has promised to bring some wine “homemade” (!) at the rectory (no doubt used for “sacramental purposes” on sunday!) I am a little scared at the prospect of my first big entertaining project, but will do all the planning next week so that just the final touches will have to be added friday noon. this way, I can partake graciously of philosophical arguments, while remaining, obviously, aloof in respect to emotions . . . as I said to you last week, I seem to be regrettably conspicuous as a single woman, and I hope to insulate myself from the ever-prevalent danger of advances by all kinds of men until such a time as . . . I am fortunate enough to luxuriate in the security and miraculousness of having you walking always beside me . . .
and I do think that this idea of entertaining groups of people is a practical way of enjoying communication without becoming personally involved with anyone . . . because I don’t want anyone to be tete a tete with me but you: and the problems involved here are obviously not those of wondering if I could love someone else: as long as you are on the earth, you will be the one I want to share my life with: the considerations here are only: which time would be the best and most practicable to begin living with you? and then, the normal differences that may arise (I can hardly see any, no matter how assiduously I look!) about, say, finances or something. all of which I’m sure can be settled by careful and considerate discussions . . .
last night, for example, nancy insisted that I go to a cocktail party given by one of her instructors (she refused to go unless I came with her) and, because I knew she wanted to go, I went for an hour. my old illusion that everyone who got a phd was brilliant, intellectual and desirable was further refuted over cocktails with anemic, pedantic, socially-regressive, scientifically-illiterate midgets . . . honestly, gordon, you and I must be exceptions (even though we are inclined often to be insecure and modest about our own potentialities!) because the young men and women here, who are associated with grad schools hereabout were the most unattractive (both physically and mentally) people I could imagine. no law school degree could excuse pedantry, no phd cancel out an uncared for, mistreated body . . . yeats’ ideal “where body is not bruised to pleasure soul”* is most important with me: I scorn intellect without a strong healthy body as much as a beautiful body without a mind to make it incandescent . . . and in you the combination of desirable qualities is so sunlike that it eclipses all the asteroids in this human solar system, and I want nothing better than to revolve around the lifegiving warmth of you for as long as the world of ourselves lasts . . . never be concerned that I overidealize you, darling . . . I am only most very aware of our human weaknesses, but in spite of and including them, I still think you are the most special person I could ever want for me . . .
practical details: I am seeing dr. heels* tomorrow afternoon for a complete pelvic examination which I would have to have anyway before I got married, and I am sure that prognosis will be generously optimistic: it is always comforting to have a definite and competent doctor’s advice, and even if I regret the unsavory way I discovered about my manyarteried insides, I’m glad to get the deluge over with so that I will be healthily prepared for a natural and completely understood sexual life . . .
and now, I must fold up my letter like the arabs and silently steal away to sleep . . . sending first to you my most longing love, and hoping to hear from you
at the apartment a week from tomorrow . . .
your very own
sylvia
TO Gordon Lameyer
Saturday 7 August 1954*
TLS with envelope,
Indiana University
saturday morning
time: early
place: paradise
dearest Gordon . . .
I think I have achieved a world’s record this weekend: sleeplinging. yesterday, after an unusually full week, I felt my typical friday languor: up at 6:30, german at 8, studying at widener from 9-11 (with a brief walk to savor the clear blue of an exquisite sparkling morning – sunlight twinkling and dancing on green leaves and colored shops in harvard square) german again at 11, frank o’connor till 1, then lunch and packing, doctor’s appointment at which all was pronounced intact, healthy and generously normal, and a lucky encounter with an attractive friend* of mine (from high school who graduated from wellesley this june) and offered to drive me home . . . well, I decided to go to bed for the day at the phenomenal hour of 5 p.m., planning to rise with dawn’s first breath: to sum up, I slept soundly till 8 p.m. this morning, chalking up a grand total of 15 hours straight! and today I am a new woman: my eyes have emerged from their charles-addamsish-purple hollows, I have washed my hair which is drying streakily in the hot sun, and I feel that I could write 7 short stories and read 100 pages of german before lunch, which I probably could, if I really concentrated on it!
I am saying all this because I want you to know how wise it was for me to stay home this weekend, even if stoic. as much as I wanted to see you and be with you, I felt it even more important to put myself in a state where I could appreciate you most fully next weekend, and I needed rather definitely to rehabilitate, equalize my blood and weight supply, study german, repair my wardrobe and my serenity, all of which being taken care of, I am again having “my cup runneth over” with energy and power, and I can’t wait to have you around so that I will feel fully appreciated and active . . . I will be delighted to see you next friday, and, needless to say, at any time this week if you should have the time to catch a ride up and back (as long as it didn’t make you too tired or too inconvenienced!) . . . for future reference: I’m always either at the apartments or at the big reference and reading room on the 2nd floor of widener library in the evening, and so easily findable . . .