“My pillow is already damp with tears”
A century of romance, Valentine’s cards, and “I need space”
Happy Valentine’s day, my fellow rats!
First off, I know cursive (especially cursive that was written a century ago) can be hard to read. Transcriptions will usually be in footnotes if they’re not immediately available in the body of the post. [Read Hannah’s card]1
P.S. that Eddsville mentioned in the above card as being “snowed down”? Doesn’t even exist anymore. Was swallowed back into the cornfields of Brown County. That’s just nuts to Rat to comprehend—but also why I love doing this.
Since this is Rat’s Nest’s first real post, I wanted to drop a small asset pack for free (some gorg early twentieth century Valentine’s cards, of course, because I have a shit ton of them in the archives… and they would be fully processed into usable design elements)—but truth be told, it’s a lot more work to prep them than I anticipated! If anyone is still interested in these post-Valentine’s Day, I’d be happy to keep working on them and release the pack in a week or two. Thoughts?
Anyway. Let’s dig in!
I’ve been trying to grow my nails out for weeks now. (Years, really, but if we’re just talking about the current attempt—weeks.) But as equally as Rat is a born hoarder, she’s also a born picker.
Cuticle tearing? Nail tip cracked at the edge? Tiny bit of skin splitting off from the sidewall? Yeah, that’s all getting picked and pulled and ripped back until my finger looks messier and bloodier than the poor raccoon that was plastered across the road in front of my house a few weeks back. RIP to that guy, btw. (I love their little paws so much. And I feel a certain rat kinship with their dumpster dives and mad scurries in the dark.)
My point is I can never just let shit lie. Something in me demands the excavation, the peeling back, the studying of what’s underneath, the how, the why. The little bit of pain, too, perhaps—though more in a “Romantic” sense than a self-destructive one. (You ever read Burke? He probably picked his nails to bleeding, sublime little stumps too, no?)
I’ll give you an example. A “romantic” one, in honor of this holiday of hearts.
Years ago I was terribly in love with a woman I met while in my undergrad creative writing program. We lived together for about a year before she started to waffle—leaning out and getting tan and buying new clothes and spending time with tons of new friends—before eventually telling me she “needed space.” In all our long, emotional conversations through this time (two lesbian water signs together, if you can imagine the horrors), she never would actually break up with me, not even when I asked her point blank if she wanted to. Instead, she would tell me over and over how much she loved me, how much she wanted to be with me, to “figure this out” for herself and have our future together. How badly she felt about what she was putting me through.
But she just needed some space.
I should have ended it then. I know that now. But I was 25 and so in love and ready to sacrifice as needed for my partner. Her mom had died a year before we met, and she hadn’t actually dealt much with all that emotional weight and trauma the cancer years and eventual loss had brought upon her, so in my naivety and love I thought that being there, being steady, being supportive would work. I thought it was the right thing to do.
So I crossed state lines alone in my shiny red SUV one hot, early-July day, leaving my dog behind to go cat sit in rural Pennsylvania for two months—the only way I could conceivably give my girlfriend the “space” she said she needed, since it meant free housing. And since apparently, being in the same city but at my friends’ apartment was not enough “space.”
If I sound bitter, it’s because I still am a tiny bit—mostly at myself for being stupid enough to go along with it and, in turn, draw out my own pain and loss far longer than necessary. And because I lost two whole precious months with my now-dead dog, who was my best friend.
I spent those two months—including my birthday—alone in one of the greenest parts of the country I’ve ever seen. Horse country. Fields and pastures and forests and wild foxes in the backyard and tiny, gorgeous one-lane brick and wood bridges shaded by tree canopy and fireflies so thick they looked like slow-mo static in the dark. It was gorgeous and empty and sad. One of the cats died of old age while I was there. I hauled him to the ER in my lap late one night and returned to the house with nothing but a stinky blanket. I ate sushi and drank beer outside in the sun and tried to feel happiness. I missed my dog every day.
I also spent hours on end writing through my thoughts and feelings while I was there, trying to make sense of whatever the fuck was going on, my own heartbreak, all the uncertainty and nuggets of hope my girlfriend had rained down on me rather than just ending it like she should have.
I spent hours excavating. Poring over our history, our conversations, psychology texts and articles—I watched Brené Brown videos and took EXTENSIVE NOTES, if that tells you how desperate I was to make sense of this cloud that had pulled itself over my entire life and psyche. I could hardly bear to think of anything else with much conviction or attention. I wrote dozens of pages of “daily journals” in a single Word doc. I couldn’t leave any bit of the relationship unexamined, unquestioned—not until I found the answer that would make it all better again, or at least make me understand.
(There is no such thing, obviously, but you couldn’t have told then-Rat that in any way that stuck.)
Speaking of the ‘sublime’ pain of going through it romantically, check out this trio of postcards. If you think my 25-year-old self was spiraling, you haven’t seen what a man with a fountain pen and a (possibly self-induced?) broken heart could do in 1909.
Let’s meet my man Lew.
CARD ONE TRANSCRIPTION2 ; CARD TWO TRANSCRIPTION3; CARD THREE TRANSCRIPTION4
First, let’s notice that there are dates inscribed on the cards alongside the long, heartfelt, sort of odd messages (they span from December to February). But there’s no postage or stamp from a processing station.
So if we assume Lew did still indeed deliver his messages and gifts to Bertha, as it’s logical to assume, given the continuance of the correspondence and the mentioned gifts he bought to go along with his February Valentine’s Day postcard [doubtful he would purchase all of that and then just not give it to her]—well then we must assume he delivered these messages in person.
Meaning he was near enough to speak with her in person, too. So either she wouldn’t allow it, they were hiding their courtship for some reason, or he was too chicken to speak to her in person (he’s pathetic but I’m not sure he’s THAT pathetic?).
I suppose there’s a fourth interpretation: He could have said all of this and more to her in person, and yet, still feverish with shame and regret (“Oh, how can I ever forgive myself […] Bertha it has been me that has been to blame not you dear love”), he writes it down all over again and leaves this permanent new form on her doorstep; she can’t get away.
I mean, that meltdown in December? “My pillow is already damp with tears”?? Jesus, fine, I wrote a couple poems while I was wallowing away in the countryside, but fuck. I didn’t mail them to her! Get it together Lew. Isn’t whatever mess you’re in all your fault anyway?
The good news (I guess) is that by February they seem to have gotten past whatever was inspiring Lew’s dramatic December messages—but we’ll probably never really know if they made it as a couple or not.
This does all make me wonder what romance and relationships were like back then without all the technology though. How can you not wonder? I can learn all about it but I can’t actually experience it myself. (Literally fuck the limitations of time and space as we know them, amirite?)
They had telegrams and regular mail and even early telephones, but they couldn’t send messages for (basically) free at the drop of a hat and have them arrive just as quickly—not like we can. There was still a forced and necessary distance between most people, basically unless you lived in the same house as them. (Or unless you were as desperate as Lew and just traveled over to deliver things by hand—but still, even then… that’s SO much more work than texting. A real commitment!) Imagine the last fight you had with a partner, the last emotional, one-or-both-sides-crying, painful ass argument or issue you had with someone you loved. Now think about what it took for you guys to work through it. Did you text or talk on the phone about it?
Idk, I think about me and that summer in PA, and I would have gone absolutely insane having to wait days or weeks just to get one god damn message from that girl, even though sometimes that was exactly what happened anyway (yeah, oof, I know, whatever). But if I were Lew and I couldn’t text or email my lady when I was panicking about the status and future of our relationship—I mean, I gotta give it to him. I might’ve been the same way. My postcards probably would have been just as pathetic. Again: Rat is a cancer sun (and mercury, jesus). Give me a break! The stars aligned to make this weepy romantic idiotic chatty heart.
But now it’s years later and Rat is older, wiser, and wonderfully in love with someone who doesn’t promise promise promise a future until she finally changes her mind; instead, she just shows up every day and asks to be mine, asks me to be hers.
And maybe this is just a lesbian culture thing (?), but it seems to me that in today’s world, it’s more romantic to make your partner a card (and/or gift) than it is to buy it. Which is in reverse from Lew’s time: sending fancy, lacy, store-bought cards (that thing he was telling her how to open in his February card was almost certainly a mechanical card) and expensive boxes of factory chocolates as a symbol of their love.
Btw, did you know the heart-shaped chocolate box thing was around all the way back in like the 1860’s?? I only just learned that while researching some of these cards… But it’s just so funny and striking to me. I think of them as such a modern thing! My references are like, Elle Woods chowing down while she’s sobbing in her glamorous pink room, and the fluorescent, obnoxious, overflowing-with-cheap-chocolate-boxes seasonal aisles at Target every January when I worked there in college. Thoroughly modern on all counts. So to imagine a gentleman back in February of 1860-something sending them to his love three towns over sends my brain into a brief record-scratch.
Lew himself could have sent one!
Also, when they were really popularized by Cadbury over the next few decades, the idea they sold was that the heart-shaped box was meant to be KEPT and filled with your love notes and cards and such. Now we just, uh, throw them all away as soon as the last good chocolate has been devoured? I mean, I guess that about sums it up nowadays, no?
But to her dead grandmother’s eternal delight and the rest of her family’s despair, Rat’ll happily keep the garbage from any era, and thus, the archives. That’s what happens when you’re a sentimental little freak.
You probably understand.
Since I wasn’t able to finish prepping the asset pack in time, let’s do a speed run through some of the other cards I’ve been looking at.
Hello Hen Pen. [wie geht's] How do you like the weather. Quite pleasant to-day isn't it. Had a long letter from Julius [?] and a card from Amy Frisco [?] to-day. Gee, but I got a lot of pretty cards last week and 2 nice letters too, Had cards from Clara and Petra Sat. All of Eddsville is snowed down you won't see it for many days. Greetings from A.
Bertha My dear Love [Dec. 7]
Now, I do understand you my Darling your heart is too full of deep love for me to express it you are as true as heaven itself. May Almighty God help me to appreciate the love of a true girl like I have been blessed with. Bertha my life and love I did not understand the deep deep sincere love that is in your dear heart. Oh, how can I ever forgive myself. Please don’t say, if I ever want you to come. Please don’t say that it hurts remember my pillow is already damp with tears night after night. Oh dear Lord if I can get things arranged here soon we will have to be together soon. If I don’t have to go west for a time. Oh darling how could I ever go farther from you it would mean death to me to do so. Bertha it has been me that has been to blame not you dear love. Do I want you if things brighten up for me you darling girl will see for you are my life and strength and all. Oh, Bertha I can’t live without [out?] you for I Love you Bertha I love you.
Sweetheart — Truly I Adore You Dec. 15 - 09
Dear Bertha, I wonder what you think of these words please tell me.
Darling dream of me while the stars are softly gleaming. When I’m far away from the[e] Keep me still within thy dreaming Tho I wander from thy side: still in spirit I am near the[e] True to the[e] what e’er betide waiting with my love to cheer the[e] Darling dream of me while in absence I am lonely too. I will bring me back to the[e] for thy faithful heart I live only Slumber free from every care And at dawn awake light hearted On thy gent[le] [lips] this prayer [May] we never more be parted.
Bertha dear is this your prayer too I Love you Lew
My Dear Valentine
In rememberance of this day i send my dear love these two valentines in this form , i was afraid to get those that were in boxes because they would likely get crushed. now dear if you open these properly they are quite pretty the one with the little tin at the top draws the blue canopy across the top and fastens on the other side
Lew.