Interlude Docs

Doc 163: Hanna McKinley

Hanna-McKinley_IMG_4508-2

I love to give and receive letters. A letter objectifies sentiment at a particular moment in time, and what’s captured remains in the possession of its owner. What a privilege on both ends! 

For whatever reason I worry about the potential intermingling of imagination and memory [close friends will roll their eyes here]—but I’m nagged by an idea that recollection over time degrades the truth of a moment, if such a thing exists.

I’m touched by the permanence of written correspondence between two people, and of letter-writing as a medium to revisit distinct moments in your life, and in the lives of others.  

Below is the last letter that I wrote to someone; presumably they still own it.

____,


Fall here is unremarkable—the air is warm and walnuts litter the street like small discarded ornaments—both a foreshadowing and sweet remnant of late summer. I think about you, and about loving you, constantly. I’ve written this a million times, and I think it’s a rare predicament where my written words can’t replace the conversations that I’m dying to have in real life. I may be in Paris but I’m always on the other end of the phone.


Love,
Hanna

Hanna McKinley is a writer living in Paris. She has held roles in publishing and as a policy consultant at the OECD and in the private sector. 

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