Vellichor // Three // Letters

We used to write letters

French Rose and Dwarf Nasturtium from Mira Calligraphiae Monumenta or The Model Book of Calligraphy (1561–1596) by Georg Bocskay and Joris Hoefnagel. Original from The Getty.

My grandmother used to write me letters. She and my grandfather both had their perches— his was a big La-Z-Boy chair and hers was the left side of their mustard yellow couch, close to the front door and the picture window that overlooked their front yard. I’m not sure if the couch’s mustard color was its actual color or the residue of my grandmother’s chain-smoking. The ash of her cigarettes was a monument. Me and my cousins would watch it and try to guess when it would topple; never into the ashtray, always onto the carpet, which was dotted with cigarette burns.

I lived with my grandparents for two years, but outside of that span I collected my grandmother’s letters, often written on card stock she’d decorated with magazine cutouts. Next to her perch was where she kept all of her supplies in a plastic basket. Ma…