Or-love-sky

 

BrainPickings.org also reports
that Allen Ginsberg and Peter
Orlovsky met in 1954, and their
relationship spanned decades
following that, until Ginsberg
passed away in the late ‘gos.
The pair also couldn't marry,
but they referred to their long
relationship as their “marriage.”
The two exchanged
beautiful heartfelt letters,
describing how they missed
each other and wished they
could be together. Orlovsky
wrote, “.. don’t worry dear
Allen, things are going ok—we'll
change the world yet to our
dessire [sic]—even if we got to
die—but OH the world’s got 25
rainbows on my window sill ..”
Ginsberg returned with
a letter saying how he missed
Orlovsky: “I’m making it all
right here, but I miss you, your
arms & nakedness & holding
each other—life seems emptier
without you, the soulwarmth
isn’t around ...”

 

 

Is there any other
(Heming)way?

 

In case you weren't aware, Ernest
Hemingway was quite the lady’s
man, so it’s no real surprise that
he’s on this list. From what my
research can garner though,

it was Hemingway’s letters to

his “dearest Kraut,’ Marlene
Dietrich, that are really worth
recounting. Kate Connolly of
the Guardian reports on a series
of letters and telegrams from
their apparently 30 years of
“unrequited love”; Connolly adds
that “they never consummated
their love, because of what
Hemingway referred to as
‘unsynchronised passion.”

Their letters were not nearly
as erotic as Joyce and Barnacle’s,
but more conversational and
joke-y—and of course lovely. In
his letter from August 28, 1955
Hemingway says a few times, “I
love you very much.’ The two
never married one another, were
perhaps never lovers, but they
were certainly friends in love:
“So what. So Merdre. I love you
as always. — Papa.”

 

“Td like to paint you...”

 

Painters Frida Kahlo and

Diego Rivera had a tumultuous
relationship: they married

in 1929 with a 20-year age
difference, divorced in 1939,
and renewed their marriage less
than a year later. Their second
marriage to one another lasted
until 1954, three years before
Rivera died.

While their relationship
was not always the most
peaceful, no one can say they
weren't passionate. Frida
wrote, “I ask you for violence,
in the nonsense, and you, you
give me grace, your light, and
your warmth. I’d like to paint
you, but there are no colours,
because there are so many, in my
confusion, the tangible form of
my great love. - F.”

 

   

Where are we now? I’m sure people still exchange
proclamations of their adulation—pages of words that try but can
never quite encapsulate the full feeling.

Yet writing love letters has lost some of the epic desperation
that being separate from your love used to carry. These days
distance is mitigated by Skype and FaceTime, ora quick drunk
text to let your dear know “I’ve been thinkin bout u.” It isn’t just
someone youre in a relationship with either—we'’re all guilty
of taking the myriad meaningful relationships in our lives for
granted on occasion, or opting for the quick and easy rather than
the long and effortful.

Maybe I’m more of a nostalgic romantic than I thought, but it
would be kind of nice, kind of beautiful, if people still exchanged
little love letters. We’re so fast-paced and instant, that it’s hard
to take the time to really think about how much someone means
to you. Even though it’s difficult, it’s worth it for the meaning,
the comparative permanency, and the beautiful gesture of sitting
with a pen in hand and struggling to find the words for the
person (or people) you love. Your letters might not go down in
history alongside the aforementioned lovelorn writers, but they'll
certainly last.