Anne Sexton

by Anne Sexton

  Enough for tonight, the ribbon is too weak to type on the reverse side of this aerogram. Last night late when I stuck letters in mailbox home I leaned against it and sobbed … I wanted to crawl into box and be sent home airmail. This means I love you very much, all of you and with all my heart.

  xo xo xo

  Anne Mom

  [To the Sexton Family]

  ITALY!

  So now it’s Lake Como and it’s

  also Sept. 25, Wed. 1963

  Dear Homefolks,

  Over the Alps! Yes, it is really over the Alps, the St. Gotthard pass and what seemed to be many mts. thereof. […] It was pouring, pouring rain out and we drove out of Zurich with our radar going as one could not see far ahead. It was awful! But who were we to be daunted by rain after all, it was only the Alps ahead! […] The blue jool went like a snail, up and up! But this I must say has its advantages for if we had known where we were going we might not have gone. Who knows when they drive into a cloud how far away the ground might be? Who? Not us, the two ladies from Boston … no, never us. So climbing and winding roads, (to call it a street is a private joke) like a snake, over and over a complete turn, hairpin it’s called, but it is worse … almost have to back and fill even with a VW. And American cars really have to back and forth it around a “curve” … So up and up. Finally we see through the driving rain signs that say “St. Gotthard” … and “Andermat” and we are nearing the pass (already so high but not to IT yet) … and so we stop for lunch and a “watering spot” at about 2 P.M. We run in from car into small alpine hotel full of Swiss soldiers and we find table and eat, all cosy with German-Swiss music playing away and it seems like a movie, all tucked away so high up—We ask (as Otto told us to) the conditions of the pass … “Is it safe? Is it snow UP there (very cold even where we are. It feels like sleet!) … We ask, but no answer. No one understands us. All they can say (even at Esso station) is “okay”. But “okay” what? We don’t know?… “Okay” you buy gas?… Or “okay” you order meal? Or just “okay” that you are American and we like you and your bucks? Or merely “okay” you pretty good looking …? Well! We don’t know and no one we speak to knows so we eat and decide “what the hell” we have come this far and we will go farther … we will drive it anyhow!

  WE DID! We drove right straight up into clouds and drove, in snake fashion, over nothing but height … until one hour later we came into blue sky and sun. Slow but sure, the other side of the Mt. is sun … coming down, half way, we could see. Wow! I was driving the pass and if I’d known where I was … but coming down (in 1st and once in a while in 2nd gear) I SAW WHERE WE WERE AND WE WERE ON TOP OF THE HIGHEST BUILDING IN THE WORLD CALLED A MT … it was great. We tried to take a few pictures, but they are not good I fear. Too quick as I scream at Sandy “take it! take it!” as I wind around a bend like the letter S … At top we had all clothes on, coats, mittens etc. and slowly, hour by hour as we descended in small s’s we peeled them off. Not hot here, but mildish … but fineish … Or anyhow better than the winter that was going on UP there. Believe me I have never seen such scenery in my life. It was JUMPING CATFISH AND JUMPING JAMPOTS (please read to Maxine that one) all over the place. Breathtaking view, one after the other! Down, through little villages, past huge waterfalls, past Heidi villages on each side, past the light brown Swiss cows with bells, as always, donging on their necks, down, s curve after s curve, through huge rock faces, and places where avalanches had taken place with miles of rocks instead of rivers, past red rocks or brown rocks, black green of pine, into valleys of green lakes, a green I’ve never seen before, as one born from a palette … reflecting the green pine I think … past 1000 copies of an M.I.T. A FRAME [family name for Woulbroun’s country house in New Hampshire] … past and past … into country that got strange, with dark winking men, into streets that crumbled more and where the sound of the Opera sprang up out of Switzerland and indeed it was not Swiss but Italian (though still Swiss in name) … where the motor bikes started to breed and the women grew stocky and big breasted. Into Italy before Italy. That is Switzerland … it is no country. It is Germany with mountains and France with mountains and Italy with mountains. Lovely but never belonging to herself (except for her prosperity and that she does have) … Finally into Italy Lardo (sp wrong) the lake country and then into Lake Como. This is spectacular bar none! The mountains rise out, straight out of the lake! Tonight all lights flicking up and down mountains and on lake. We have okay room and its window peeks out on lake … I love you! My radio at this table plays American songs … Glad to know from Linda’s note on El Boylan’s letter that you went to the A Frame. It made me happy to know where you were and what you were doing. All through the Alps, looking at “other” A frames I thought of all of you up there and the fun you would be having. And, you know, it makes me happy to know just exactly what you are doing all the time. This is “the happiness that is a small note” […]

  All this from your girl who drove the Alps and wasn’t afraid even in the high thick muddy clouds of freezing rain.

  Oh! Love to you all,

  my Kayo,

  my Linda,

  my Joy,

  my cats (two)

  my dog (one, named Clover!)

  Anne

  much love and all kisses and hugs

  Anne Mom

  Love too to Billie and Joan who I

  hope you share letters with as often

  as news is fit to share. Of course!

  They too are “The Sexton Family” …

  [… illegible]

  [To Alfred Sexton,

  telegram]

  September 27, 1963

  VENICE IMPOSSIBLY BEAUTIFUL YOUR LETTERS BETTER THAN WINE STAYING 8 DAYS PLEASE WRITE HERE JUMPING CATFISH LOVE

  [To Alfred Sexton]

  Venice, Italy

  Sept. 27, Friday [1963]

  Dearest Kayo, My Boots,

  Your letters! Dear God how I treasure them and eat them and pat them to death. Can you know?… Now out to dinner in Venice after an orgy of mail reading in the piazza san marco … back here to go and now having reread now Sandy has her coat on and is ready to go … More later.

  My dearest … can it be you who writes such eloquent letters! Can it be? And, after all those blameful from me in Zurich … oh Boots, you must remember that for one week no letter came to me … and I did not know. I wrote from faith and my faith grew weak. Forgive me. That is why (one reason) I called today … so you would know that all was well. But after your letters, what can I say … that love is “well” and that it is YOU I LOVE! Kayo, before I forget please date your letters as well as the day as reading I don’t know what is going on. I realize you don’t know our exact dates places and is why I wired it today … (I am so full of ideas that they rush out, please forgive the manner in which they do so) … I wasn’t being too hard to ask that the kids write … not under your supervision but at least under Billie’s or someone’s. Not, certainly, after you come home. But on their own. Once a week I think it possible and necessary for my soul as a mother. If you were away for this long you’d know how I felt … not to put stress on you, but the responsibility of love upon them! Nana could help them or preferably encourage them in this! No reason why not … I realize the homework and the rest … but too, I know, they could, though not in the habit, form the habit (when their mother is away) … and I expect them to be responsible … not you. Linda is 10—not a baby … She can and so can Joy (in a smaller way). I think THEY can … not you forcing them. Enough. Even a mother in Europe can make demands (Can be effective! Can cry out and be known. Even.) …

  And you, my love, my husband … oh god! How can I say? Your letters, at least (after the terrible mistake and silence of Zurich) come over me and fill me. I should not doubt and worry, but I did. I am too afraid of life and of love to know how to trust. Forgive this and understand. I have been terribly lonely without you … more than you know. But I HAVE HAD TO KEEP FLAG FLYING if not for me then for “us” …
and whatever we stand for … Some of the words in your letters, my darling, are unbelievable in their intuition and their beauty. Could that be Kayo? Can I really know him? Oh, dear love, I love what I know—but how much more of you is there really???? What you has spoken? And how well and fully may I speak back … love, love love. And even when I doubted (as in Zurich) it was the same, never changing, never stopping. But now … my darling, I (the poet) have no words … the bed you pat I cannot. The room you see, I cannot. The moon, I cannot. All mine are different … infinitely strange and perhaps wonderful … but not part of you … except that everything I see is part of you … all I taste and smell and watch is part Kayo … oh god! I miss you. Quick! Listen! I’m here in Venice and today I sent a wire and it meant that Venice is the most lovely thing I had ever dreamed of in my whole life … and I refuse to spend all our time in France. Whether you like it or not we will come here. It is magic! Never! Never! I mean, my God. Sick or not this would make me well … Kayo, please know, that it is your letters and the truth of them that keeps me going over here, nothing else. I can’t live without you! I just can’t. Venice, I say on arriving, deserves at least a week. And so we stay on. I don’t want to leave it ever (except for you) … I have never seen anything like it!… (This letter is no good … but it says so much love for you that I can’t say … I’m not really a poet, just a button, who loves you forever and wants to be home … though finds Venice the place she will force you to come to) … That’s it, my darling. Please play records and Hi Fi and think of me, please wait for I will hurry and will stay in your arms as long as you ask … in fact, seriously consider a double bed. I am getting to be calm sleeper and wish to sleep only within your precious arms. No matter where. With you!

  Oh! Boots!—I’m your Princess Anne—(as you call me) who wants only to be your button)

  […]love your princess Button in Venice

  [To Alfred Sexton]

  Section 2 of other letter,

  Sept. 27th, Friday, Venice and all that …

  [1963]

  Well, darling, I lay on the bed while Sandy was typing a letter to Scot (I have to take turns with precious typewriter) and I reread all your letters and I just couldn’t let my last letter go alone … for there is so much more. […] but more I must say … Share what is worth sharing … nevermind, this is just to you. I love you so. Your letters to me are for each meal, each second of hidden time, each time when I can’t bear, each moment that I want to share … I carry them with me always and pick them up constantly! I’m just looking at Europe, the person I’m listening to is YOU. (Understand?)

  Boots, I was sick in Zurich … terribly lonesome for you. I stood, one night, and cried into a mailbox slot until Sandy got out of car and pulled me away. That’s the way it was. And then finally I grew hard with sorrow, not knowing why you didn’t write, and wrote all friends asking why you didn’t write … thought you were sick or unfaithful (I’m a nut, but I do have such an imagination, boots!) … My radio plays beside me, home songs, songs of you. Oh! And Sandy gets me irritated … but of course … I won’t go into it. But she does … Not now, but often enough. Not too often—but-often.[…]

  … Boots! You know what I wish … I wish I didn’t get Ford [Foundation grant] so we could have a baby and I could stay home next year having … I sit here with head in hands, outside boats paddle by my window and I’m speechless … what kind of writer am I? With all this love and no words for it? And then too, the wonderful letters from Linda (dear traveling Mom) and from Joy (who won’t walk ding toed anymore) … oh, how I love! Want and miss!… Kayo, I’m in Venice! I can’t believe it! I can’t believe you aren’t here too! But I’ll fix that next June. You HAVE to come here …

  Paris is nothing compared to Venice. We will fly here, forget the cost! I can’t bear it if you won’t! Nuts to every other place! Oh Kayo, you are my King—you are … and I am only your princess … do you know? Do you know that you are the father that never loved me, the lover who made me a woman, the friend who taught me how to enjoy life, the brother to share laughter with, the son I’d like to have. Do you know? My life is so much your life … and so strange and sad to see things without your arm next to mine. To live and yet—not to live.???? Please, when I come home, don’t forget the “soul” … and I don’t mean “sweet sayings” … I mean the truth, the sharing of our inmost thoughts, good or bad … lost or comforting. That is the soul. I think it. The soul, is I think, a human being who speaks with the pressure of death at his head. That’s how I’d phrase it. The self in trouble … not just the self without love (as us) but the self as it will always be (with gun at its head finally) … To live and know it is only for a moment … that is to know “the soul” … and it increases closeness and despair and happiness … My life with you increases all things because I value it so much. Oh sweet, my darling, my boots, my King, I’m your wife. I love … always, each minute. Write me always and know I miss you so.

  Anne

  P.S. We have chamberpots in our room blue and white china—to empty in canal!!

  Letter to Linda and Joy tomorrow and thanks for their letters. They made me so happy! A happy Mom!

  Hope pics, from here come out—they ought to be great! Such a city on water!—xo

  xo

  xo

  xo

  xo

  I keep hanging out the window—can hardly sleep—too lonely—

  [To Alfred Sexton]

  [Venice]

  Oct. 2nd, Wed., 1963

  Dearest Kayo, my Boots,

  Ever since your letter of yesterday I have been thinking and worrying about you. Thinking what can I do to help my boots who is hurt and alone and tired and cannot sleep? First thing I thought of yesterday is how fine it would be if you could go on a hunting trip. Is there any way (even if we had to use money from my acct. for it I think it would really be worth it … you could call it my little present) … Then last night I kept thinking about it and dreaming crazy dreams of distress. And then this morning talking with Sandy, not about you, but about me and being very philosophical. This is what I am not writing you, I fear. I fear you get the travelogues, the amazed and wondrous cries of delight and then in the next letter the lost and despairing little girl. So this morning I’m writing a little to tell you how I am and where I am. For you say that each night you climb the four walls alone worrying about me.

  Darling, why all this worry? Nothing bad can happen to me. You realize that in this separation I have the easiest role for if I can’t stand it, very simple, I come home. As easy as that. But if you can’t stand it, you don’t feel you can tell me to come home. I see your point. But, may I add, that if you really can’t bear it, home I’ll be. Just ask. It is both our trip, my darling. I felt this from the beginning when you insisted I go … that actually I was going for and with you … never leaving you really. That you wanted so much for me to go (I’ll never really know why) … but want you did and so I’m here. And my being here is partly for you in some strange way.

  It has not been easy for me … and the hard times, the cold I got, the cold (not heat) and the various thievers were all part of it. But they are the very things my strength is and is being built upon. Then too the sights have amazed me and then too I took a strange perverse liking to the very real physical discomforts. To prove to myself that I could withstand them, rise about them and go on with it. It is the part of me that you first fell in love with … the girl who kept swinging the club even when she couldn’t hit the ball. Stubborn, keeping on with it. This is a good thing … I want to prove to me and you that I’m not a quitter. But I feel I already have. I do! I have missed you more than I ever thought possible and when in Zurich and I didn’t hear I got worried, thought you were sick and didn’t know … Why then, I asked Sandy, is he worrying about me. You mustn’t worry, Bootsy, I am all right. Nothing can happen to me over here, nothing bad. Each day I stay on stubbornly I am gaining (perhaps not pounds but they are easily put on with steak and beans at
home) but strength, an inner guts. And I’m doing it for you because you wanted me to. I’m not being shot at (as I worried about you in Navy) … I’m driving very carefully, I’m not even looking at attractive men. The luggage being stolen was sad, but we were insured, it’s not the end. The worst was losing Nana’s letters but it is over now. What more can I say? I’m sitting here in a brand new navy three piece knit bought just yesterday for only 30 bucks. Outside the sun shines and perhaps we’ll go to beach. I bought a darling bloo jool color bathing suit that looks like a little girl’s gym suit. I smile. I smoke. My face in the mirror (write on dressing table) is not gaunt, but pretty. It is your Anne who looks back at me. It is your Anne over here! Always!

  Do you think that always sitting in my room listening to Hi Fi is maybe just depressing you and that the T.V. might be more fun and more distracting? Don’t you think if you cooked two hot dogs you might sleep on full tummy better than two bullets? (what we doing, getting two drug fiends in one family) … Who am I to talk … but still Dr. L. said you didn’t have a good reaction to them and ought not to take them. […] But I’d rather have you take one than not sleep. Oh darling, you are so tired and with big stinko, and all … Oh mr. Boots, cheer up. Don’t worry about your Anne, and she is your Anne … I am doing quite well in the overall … and soon I’ll be home. And we (you and me) will discuss at length whether I’ll go back at end of Feb. or March or whatever it is. So it’s really only about two more months … and we can make that, bootsy, I know we can. And I do want to know just how you are … worry is my right and so it is yours. I’ll never lie or cover up anything … You are here with me. Put me there with you. Pat the bed and smile and say that’s a good girl, Anne, and I’m proud of you and I’m with you and you’re really here with me. Also pat your bed where I put my head. For God’s sake your hands are getting out of practice with no head rubs to give! But not for long!