Description
287 July 27 Friday 6 pm My darling, When I got your letter (of a week ago at this same time: #340) at the bar of the Officers’ Club, to where someone had brought the mail - it was handed to me just as I started to drink a coke-and-rye - I read as far as the first paragraph, finished my drink hastily, and took it outside to read. I've had a faint intuition lately that my letters could not have been very satisfying to you. Perhaps it would have been less faint if I were not so busy - a fact whose goodness for me must work a corresponding hardship for you. I do love to write you comforting letters, darling, letters in which there is a lot of you and me both - not constantly, of course, but every once in awhile. When I don't do so I feel the lack of it just as you do, only (because I'm more occupied) rather as a vague undertone of uncomfortableness than acutely. Sometimes I rationalize that feeling by saying to myself that a certain amount of discipline is good for us both - true enough, but as I well realize, not relevant at such times. [pg 2] I too often have the feeling that I want to get far away from anybody and everybody else but you and Wendy. I think we shall exercise that need, but not for periods as long as a year. On the whole I tend to become more gregarious, not altogether liking it whenever I'm aware of the fact (or even when I'm not), but on the whole becoming the more sure of myself for it. A man can't exist in a social vacuum. What we both need first of all is togetherness, to give each other love and confidence to the fullest; on that foundation only is it safe and satisfying to build an essentially extroverted life. My dearest, I cannot promise even after your reminder that I will always anticipate those times when you most need a long letter from me though I'll try harder. I'm trying to learn to do two things that are difficult to do concurrently - put in long hours (because the work to be done demands it, if it is to be done); and live reasonably and sanily from a physical and social [pg 3] standpoint. Despite the pooh-poohs of Jim Boyle, who brims overs with vitality and seems never to have encountered a frustration or a inhibition, that anyone can grow used to 6 or 7 hours sleep a night and that the rule of 8 is just a medical fetish, I do believe that I require a fairly steady 8 hours, and since working nights end about 9:30 and I have to get up at 6, that leaves little time on such days for settling into the mood of a letter. That's why those “impersonal” notes. They don't necessarily mean at all, though, that my feelings have become impersonal; I think of you in a hundred little personal ways throughout the day, and then by evening or by pause-for-a letter time so many other things have happened that I've lost the thread of what I’d have liked to say to you. To cite one small incident, you were with me yesterday as I watched several hundred kids delightedly following the antics of a monkey that an enlisted man from an outside unit had brought to school at my request. And I [pg 4] pictured Wendy's large eyes round with wonder and sparkling with excitement. I get excited, darling, every time I look at the latest photograph of her (the big one) and see the miracle of intelligent and strong beauty featured there. I was a little disappointed in your description of the Ewings' visit - you didn't say whether you enjoyed it, and seemed to intimate by the way you dismissed it briefly that you didn't, particularly. Disappointed not in you, of course, darling - I just mean sorry, because I enjoyed Riley so much here. I think, tho, that one has to savor him awhile and get his measure before appreciating him fully. But maybe I've misinterpreted a general feeling of blueness, and one for which I don't blame you. Here we come to a tough part. It's been rough on you, sweetie, being around to get all the scuttlebutt from or about a lot of guys who with their families haven't had even the small burden of the war that we've shared, and then hearing how this or that one is getting out of the Navy without [pg 5] ever having left the States. But you must remember that I'm in the midst of men who've been out an average of 2 ½ years, and some few of them almost five; as such I am naturally subject to their standards. Not that anyone here would begrudge me stateside orders if I had the good fortune to receive them, but I just can't finagle them or even try except on the basis of that letter I wrote to Hawaii awhile back - and that seems to have struck deaf ears. You say “I wish you could sit down and think of a couple of good-sounding reasons, and then apply for a discharge,” but Sweetie, there aren't any reasons to fit my case. No reason we could give based on your needs or mine would hold water. Please, darling, try to consider how fortunate we are in that I am where I am, and in the near-certainty (at least the way the news looks at this moment) that I won't have to serve beyond my eighteen months. I know, it's a long, long time - but it's 5/9 over! I guess it was a little cruel to venture the [pg 6] thought, not so long ago, that I might be home in 3 or 4 months. It's still possible - there's just no way of knowing. Now I think it most likely that I'll finish my time here, and be done with that. So let's leave it there for the time, Sweetie, and consider ourselves lucky if it comes off that way. Yes, I still think I may be home by Christmas whether CASA folds up or not. It's just too soon to say. I'm missing a letter that tells how Wendy cut her lip, but I'm glad to hear that she can take it, and that she has another tooth. Hand writing? No, sweetie, I hadn't noticed, but the answer to your question is simple, I think. More confidence on my part, more wisdom on yours. Never fear, darling, the old breeziness and lightheartedness which went with your former full and undisciplined hand hasn't left you forever - it's just been trimmed down, like your figure. Neither one is cramped as a result; they’re just [pg 7] right for you, for now. And I love you, darling, for being you. The scent of you at night as I wear the light blue pajamas is so good, and brings you so close. I lie there feeling relaxed yet sensitive all over my body, and it's just as though you were lying their beside me and I could reach out and caress you. Incidentally, this trimmed-down pajama version is most appropriate and comfortable for sleeping out here. Today's news of [Otlee's?] resounding victory over Churchill - whom I never trusted except in matters directly affecting the conduct of the war - is most encouraging in connection with the peace. So is the apparently ready understanding between Truman and Stalin. But most of all, the peace feeler put out by the Tokyo radio. Now I'm looking forward to reading about the clarification [pg 8] of unconditional surrender which apparently has been made from Potsdam. I am tired tonight from a long movie last night after an exceedingly busy two days during Tel's absence (most of this letter has been written after English class, and it's now 10:30), and am not satisfied with this letter, but certainly shall not attempt to rewrite it. In general, my morale is good and I continue to learn at a rate which surprises me when I look back over it. Enough for now - I do love you so very, very much, darling, and I guess your letter today upset me a little. But I wouldn't have you write otherwise than you feel. Goodnight, Sweetie Warren
