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The final two paragraphs of Bishop’s last
extant 1962 letter to her aunt began with a strong, for Bishop, expletive: “DAMN!”
She had mentioned earlier that she and Lota were finally going to get away to
the country, to Samambaia, for the weekend, and were, actually, about ready to
leave. But as Bishop typed this epistle, things changed: “we can’t go to the
country after all.” The culprit this time was not Lota’s job, exactly, but the
writer” John Dos Passos. Bishop wondered if her aunt had ever heard of him: “well
— he’s here and now he wants to see me.” Moreover, “he also wants to see Lota’s
park.” This request meant that their departure was delayed “until tomorrow.”
So, not a total loss, but since she hadn’t been to the country in over a month,
she was eager to go. This kind of interruption made her declare: “we are
getting too official for my taste.” And observe that she was “a hermit
by nature!”
All she wanted to do was “to get up there
and just listen to the hi-fi all evening.” And she wanted to see Mary Morse’s
daughter Monica, who she declared yet again was a “darling — almost two now.”
Mary and Monica had recently visited them in Rio “for a few days and every
morning early I took her swimming on the beach.” As young as Monica was, Bishop
described her as “fearless” around the water: “she rushes right into the
breakers, or water over her head, sinks, comes up laughing, her nose running,
her hair all wet.” Clearly, a natural. So much did she love the water, Bishop said
that she “couldn’t get her to sit & play on the sand.” All she wanted to do
was “rush back into the water.” When they returned to the apartment Bishop
jokingly said to Mary: “Your child is too rough for me to play with!” Who was
tiring out whom?
The letter was finally winding down for
good, with another “Well — ” and an effort to make the best of the delay in
going up to the country: “I’ll get to
call on Elizabeth [Naudin] this afternoon,” something she had been wanting to
do for some time.
As she reflected on what she wrote, she asked
her aunt to “Please forgive all my various tales of woe.” And shifted gears to
Grace, hoping that she was “keeping well and that you had a nice summer.” Since
it had been so long since she wrote, and clearly since she had not heard from
her aunt, she wondered “Where were you all this time?” And asked if there had
been “lots of strawberries?” She noted that this fruit was just coming on “in
Samambaia — and artichokes are just beginning.” Then she realized that it was
in fact “‘spring’, more or less.” With the approach of hotter weather, she told
her aunt that she was “going to invest in an air conditioner,” something they never
had before, “but if Lota has to work all summer and stay in Rio I don’t think
we can stand it without one.” The issue would be whether or not they could “get
one, that is,” because there was “a shortage of practically everything.” This
last line was just about typed off the bottom of the page.
Her final sentences were scribbled on the
left margin. She wondered how Phyllis and her family were doing. How “Buddy’s
baby” was: “I don’t even know its sex, name, or anything.” And she was
genuinely interested. She knew her aunt would have lots of news so she signed
off with “Please write soon. Lots of love, Elizabeth.”
It is hard to believe that no more letters
were exchanged between Bishop and her aunt in 1962, but none exist. Grace and
Phyllis were so careful to save Bishop’s letters, it is a shame that whatever
was written in this next stretch has vanished. And all of Grace’s letters are
gone, a real loss to history and an understanding of Bishop’s maternal family,
about which she cared deeply. The next extant letter is dated 3 January 1963,
from Rio. The next post will commence the New Year.
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