Dear Caitlin
So here I sit on a dismal & dreary sunday afternoon in the woods. My parents and I came out to this small place on the lake, nestled in a corner with water and rocks all ’round. I run away to find my quiet spot, which I’ve found – and no one else has.
Getting home was a refreshing feeling, but leaving was so gut-wrenching. Every day that passed addes a few more drops of truth to our bucket, then I go running off with the bucket – and nothing more of it to be? – I don’t know about that – for I wish now to see you – but don’t know when – just again –
and hey, this is a long standing rule in all my notes letters and stuff – I get wacky – and some words are touched by wild realism and metaphors – Don’t ask me why – but I like to write it – and I feel like the point is understood – but not always like it should. Anyway – this is my disclaimer – letting me run all around with my pencilo and letting me write free and truthfully.
an–> Back to what this is supposed to be – a letter to you –> I had a great week – and enjoyed almost all aspects of it – Talking to someone else – we agreed that if it were like Saturday afternoons + Sunday mornings all the time – enjoyment would be running wild. But it’s not that way – and Silver Lake wouldn’t be there if it was that way – so – what’s ya gonna do? Hey! You missed it on friday lunch – someone started an arts + crafts chant in the social hall – It was wild – but if only you had ben there to thear the hoot – holler that Greg & I let our afterwards – that was cool – and my hoot went out to you. I dunno who greg’s holler went to though, anyway, what other great stories did you send me home with? That dance that all my 7th & 8th grade kids look forward to was a little light I get to look backwards at. Hell – I know who I wanted to dance withh all night – but she wasn’t always there – but it was finally a blessing to find her there in my arms with me, wanting to be there. And her with me. I liked that – the simplicity of it all – the playfulness of it. the fun of just flirting. You know it all sounds silly but I felt so different when we were there Eds. i’m not sure that I’ve got t7th & 8th grade feelings in me. Because I think alittle bit more about it than than that. So where does this all leave me?
Just wanting to be with you for more than simple time in between this and that
u is what tugs at me the most. I really don’t expect this note – (or didn’t expect) to become a passionate plea for love note – just a heart felt feelings for you note. It was like – oh- look out – do your thing J.T
July 26th
but keep your eyes open for the girl in green – or was it the girl in red with the silly short hair. Everyday there was a memory to be had – and I have them.
That really sums up the simple truth to my week – looking out and for you was something I caught myself doing all the time – but it wasn’t a guilty kind of thing. Just a simple look that added alittle light to a cabinful of 8 adolescent boys that would talk throughout the night. Something sweet to run away with lay down and just smile about. I don’t really understand our attraction. but speculation about that isn’t something that I’m ready to offer guesses for. I have my reasons, my ideas and my thoughts – But not now – and not here – Maybe somewhere in a green field with grass above our heads blowing back and forth like it wants to be a wheat field. –> Or by the side of a little creek that babbles and bobbles with water. Or even in Scotland among those cows that I dream about. Black and white munching in pastures bordered by stone walls with barbed wire fences atop them. the grass is green there – a nice red barn a white farm house and a car passes once an hour. It’s quiet, farmy yet cozy – and in my mind that’s where I think that she lives – yes you – It’s a preconceived notion of places never seen never visited that we all seem to conhure up in our little minds – like the person you talk to on the phone – there they are – what that room looks like – what that place is truly like – just like the place i’m at – only describable with your eyes. like many things – Just like these stupid tears that don’t fall.
Anyway, i’d love to hear from you – read from you – see from you – or just have something with you. So i’ll send this tomorrow and hope that you’ll get it soon. Tuesday wednesday or something like that – Double ended correspondance has always been nicer than talking to a paper with a pencil.. And I’d like to have somewhere to write to – and someone to write to – So: I hope you aren’t left mystified by the words. the writing. or my feelings. because it seems like quite the DELUGE Big word that i’ve only heard but now gotten to write that i’ve added to this little bucket of ours – so hey hope you’ll add your things and send the bucket back. Love JTMiss Caitlin Tefft Stevens
Silver Lake Country Club Staff
223 Low Road
Sharon, CT 06069
, 1992
Sunday afternoon
Caitlin Tefft Stevens
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223 Low Road
Sharon, CT 06069
Sunday afternoon
[postmark Aug 3, 1992]
envelope inscription: I like the word lover – But I think its better to say – Love Her – Pronunciation [franche]
Dear Caitlin
Receiving your note was so refreshing and romanticizing for me. I felt so much of what you did – as far as being quite clueless to your thoughts and feelings for me. It’s the two way correspondance that seems to really only work in one direction sometimes. On it all though, having come home for the entire week from work I’d always be peering into the mailbox or asking my father if I had gotten any mail for the day – and on friday i was lucky enough to get your letter. and let me tell you – sitting down on my bed – dirty and grimy from working outside – i felt terrific to read the words and know the thoughts- and throughout the night – thru till the moment that this pencil etches these words, I have found myself thinking of you and wishing for you – It is truly a thought that has occupied my mind since I first saw you – and flashback, yes, and in all my corniness – in the Cedars for the dean/counselor/Alden meeting – the girl with green birks – I looked at her – and I think that she was looking my way once or twice – But in any case – It is her that I find myself thinking of and writing to. <-- So now that I've added the little bit of what puts us here blip --> what is new?–>
I’m so mad that I didn’t write on Friday afternoon – or Sat. morn – before the mail went out – but on Sat I had a race in N.Milford – anmd needed my stupid sleep – but – I know I would have had time to write you if I hadn’t been reading your letter over and over – I’ll tell you one thing –> if you saw that purple(?) paper now – with your woeds written upon it – you’d be able to see the parts that have worn out from me just glancing and prancing my eyes across it. (Watch out sometimes I get extremely corny with some words – and I don’t know whjere it comes from – But a real word won’t get into my mind – so I use these amusing rhyming dudads to convey some sort of meaning – Ah, never mind.) that really stinks – they say that neither rain nor snow nor hail stops the mail – but alas – Sunday grinds the service to a startling halt – oh well – I guess that’s the way it works – and hope you get this sometime soon – like Monday afternoon – yeah right – maybe Tuesday – well, in any case you’re not going to want to get this if I just ramble on about the US Postal service.
That game you talk about is so true – It just seems to be so accepted and played that people don’t know that they’re caught in a game with no meaning inside – only what the players of it provide – I feel that the actions of this “game” are to put the feelings up on the table – they did this together – and that couple did “that” together – so what they have is true love – I really don’t think so – It’s what that couple thinks of one another – and about what they think of when they are together – it really isn’t what they do that establishes the feelings – that’s just the game – and you’re only suppesed to feel the feelings before you’re attached to play – that’s just one of the rules – but it’s been bent and broken over the years – and people are out there that just want to roll the dice without learning the rules and finding out what they’ll get if they do win – but in it all – It is a game – and I’ve got one thing that’s been bouncing around in my jead since I read that from you –
It’s the game I’ve decided not to play
but rather to just play…
Just going on – addressing more points of our intrest –> logic – yeah – that’s cool – the logic of logic – what does it bring us – and when we find out the reasons – will they bring a set of rules set in stone? – or does logic here provide for none of that? in some instances couldn’t it be totally logical to not involve any logic? To ride with the wind and flow from the heart? Isn’t that logic in itself? there isn’t a correct way to do “this or that”. That’s another word – the “cprrect” way – logic is not right or wrong – But what you see as right – so enough of that – where is this going? – I’ve got more to write –>
So? – Where is the back side leading me? To alittle bit of news – and if we don’t run out of room, a little bit ’bout the truth – but we’ll see about that.
Um- I’m hoping that on fi=riday the 7th (i think) –> that you will stay for the Sing Praise musical deal – Greg wants to go see a friend of his – and I would very much like to see a friend of mine. So i hope you’ll stick around – and we’ll see…… each other. (Yippie!) well – it supposed to be “wish you were here” but for now i’m feeling the – “wish I was there” deal – and on it grows.
You are so right about us never getting an honest chance to talk to one another. and that’s one thing I’d really like – something I would enjoy – It seems like these oodles of lead are telling the story now – and have already said more than you heard from me. What you read is me – and it’s something that is truly me, that no one cares to even see. Few have heard the me on ledger paper – And that’s the place that I find myself spilling and pouring my heart out onto. –> And all the garbage is for you to pick through and find the me that is me – the me that loves to talk – the me that I find myself loving you – that’s me.
Oh – speaking of me – remember the little adress note deal – well that one thing I found myself grasping onto and putting on the headboard on my bed. sounds stupid – but it stayed there – till I got your letter so true -but you said it – it was the only thing I had to know you were alive – and to know that you ever existed. Well I seem to be running ’round in little circles. and getting afraid to talk of something new – because I don’t know what to say – It’s the I’m talking to no one here – syndrome. What to no one here – syndrome. What, should I talk to the wall now? So. I’m done. I tired – and I’m heading to bed. So good night for tonight – and hope to find our place in the night. Take care Caitlin – and keep my love with you .
your secret pal [crossed out]
J.T.
S.P. i’ll try to call you on thurs night to see if you’re still alive and your heart is beating.
<-- what? NEVERMIND!
Miss Caitlin Tefft Stevens
c/o Mudge Pond Conference Center
223 Low Road
Sharon, Ct 06069
[in a letter postmarked Aug 15th, 1992]
Friday night
Dear Caitlin
So here I find myself writing to you once again- Its ussually one of those deals that you write a letter, they write you back – and maybe one more slips itself in teh mail before all contact seems to be lost. But I don’t wish to see that happen – and I hope that you won’t let it. – But I write into the deeper darker parts of tonight. All last night I found myself talking to you – And the same for today – Almost as if our conversation hadn’t ended and I was seeing you in the morning at breafast with something so fine and cultured to tak about. But where the hell is this going – simple fact – to state – I was simply thing of you all day – And it wasn’t all so simple – If you catch my drift (now that’s the part that isn’t simple.)
You get out on the 22nd but not really – I work everyday, less some weekends – really – But I live life in there and there is time for us to find some fun frolicking in your fields of fancy. Hay – er -hey (<-- hee haw), that was quite the chord that struck me - that you were totally enthused with the fields I hold for fantasy - I wasn't the only one that loved the open space, the long grass swaying in the wind with the fresh air that you seem to expect in the entire breathtaking setting. Simple fields. Not caviar not a $60,000 car, no diamond ring, nobody walking on the catwalk. just grass on land. Beautiful. and simple - (have I said that word enough tonight?) which brings me to something. You + me. You there and me here.
You are there and I am here.
Now all we need to do is dare to become alittle more near. So that I can see you – because I’ve been running to the tops of all the mountains – to the cliffs – climbing trees running on ridges – trying to see you – but I just can’t see over those 30 some odd miles. You over the next ridge over there down in the valley after that near that pond – sludge pond? – yeah! But – all I know is that my eyes only see simple beauty growing from nature but don’t see the beauty lying over that hill and after the next one, somewhere north – Only this paper does. ONly sees her eyes – and it falls in love with them as they glide across the words that take this from paper to a letter, find the meaning of the words – that makes more of it then just a letter.
I really don’t to go way crazie tonight – Waah! its almost half past twelve now – Ands I got to be gone by seven – But this is not the end – Not one of those cheesy paragraphs that says got to go – sorry no more paper – got to go! I know where there’s more.
Here it is – open land to trance upon.
Coming up to Silver Lake on Friday was nice – I was kinda disappointed with the show-bit who am I to say? I think it was cool that these were high schoolers in the deal – But those 7th + 8th graders oput on a hell of a show – But the first show I was at had me sitting in better company –
In it all I realized how far you aren’t (is that right english?)(sounds cool) The ride was quite scenic – and quite an adventure for me. I didn’t even take an hour for the whole deal – Cruising up took like a little more than 1/2 an hour – but going home was mellow and literally cool with cold blood flowing through my veins into my heart with frasj feeling caught in my chest – I was nice – But sounds really KORNY – so – (its like that burning in the corner of your mouth) – I’ve gotten that a few times lately – its real wierd – with no real way to lose the heat nor the taste of it – Anyway -I wanted to know a few things – so you know what I’m going to ask you – right here – (not only is it a note for your soul – but a questionnaire) Oh this feels stupid, so well.
You play soccer or just like sambas? (some of these come from my silly suspicions)
what do you want to be when you grow up? little girl question
what sign are you? 60’s question
do you like poetic poetry? me to you question
you really like raggawe? -or just Bob?
Do you think that being happy is the most important thing in life – Boy im not really leaving too much room for argument here.
why is the sky blue? and the grass green? i dunno, so im askin’ you
to you once again- Its ussually one of those deals that you write a letter, they write you back – and maybe one more slips itself in teh mail before all contact seems to be lost. But I don’t wish to see that happen – and I hope that you won’t let it. – But I write into the deeper darker
how old are you lady? you know how old i’m not
Enough – i really want to know all this – but it isn’t supposed to be like downloading an IBM 243E mainframe computer to an outdrive sending unit to my internally harnessed connector in my brain (what?) it all comes about in the midst of the convfersation we have while lying down under the sun just being together – and living that little bit of our lives together just the afternoon that day that in’m totally with your mind, soul and body all at the same time. But for now i’m settling with words on pink paper, a voice on the telephone a kiss or tow that I caught coming my way, and memories rolling around like marbles in my head. –> But that’s all for now – And this seems to be all – with love and a dusting of lust.
J.T.