WA Draft 1

As soon as I got in the rental car with my parents at 6 am I grabbed for my envelope of train letters. I was already crying, I couldn’t imagine what these letters would do to me. Train letters are an Interlochen tradition. All of the girls in your cabin write you a letter telling you how much they love you, why they love you and retell stories that you have done together over the course of 6 weeks. When Interlochen first was started, people used to read them on the train. Now, you read them on your way home, regardless of the transportation method. I had been watching the big envelope with my name on it fill up with the letters from the girls I had begun to think of as family. I had to resist every temptation to read what my friends had written. I had to wait until I left. The letters were so filled with emotion and six weeks full of feelings packed into one page that I couldn’t hold back. They were filled with all sorts of compliments and memories. As good as the compliments made me feel, the tears where flowing faster and harder then before.

On the plane, I read the letter from my friend Genevieve. I had stopped crying before I got to security, but Genevieve’s letter did me in. Her letter was so concise, yet so intense that I just began to sob right on the spot. I’m fairly sure the guy in the seat next to me did not have the faintest idea of how I felt. Genevieve always says she hates people, but she likes an unusual amount of people at Interlochen. She is fairy sarcastic, and so she managed to keep herself in this letter and still tell what she wanted to say. She wrote:

Sara I love you more then anything I’ve loved anything in my life. You may wonder why? You may not. Either way, I’m going to tell you anyway. You are amazing! You’re super- talented, have awesome hair, are really pretty in general, are fun and funny, and are super nice. Most importantly, you supply me with a general supply of tic- tacs.

My friend Molly’s letter was another type of train letter. She wrote about the memories of some of the things that we did together:

Who will I randez- vous with? Who/ where will I frolic with/to? Whose iPod will I borrow? Who will I eat with at stone, fantasize about the reading orchestra, sing Company with, get kicked out of Corsen and DeRoy,follow the guy who thinks he’s my teacher’s potential lovers and be crazy with?

It made me smile and feel good, but the tears were still flowing because I knew that we could never talk in person about all of those things again. We wouldn’t be able to make any new stories and keep up the traditions that we had formed.

When I got off of the plane, I had read a dozen more letters that I had similar reactions to that of Genevieve and Molly’s. By this time, I had regained my composure, with only bloodshot eyes and a flushed face to hint at my previous state. I checked my phone, and it said that I had a voice mail from my viola teacher at Interlochen. I listened to it, already trying to blink back the rivers I could feel forming in my eyes. She apologized for not getting me my train letter in time, and was calling to leave me a train voicemail. By this point, the rivers I had successfully managed to hold back suddenly became like Niagara Falls and I couldn’t do anything to stop it. I’m sure I was making a huge spectacle of myself in the Detroit airport, but nonetheless, Jane’s message pushed me into tears that I knew wouldn’t be the last I shed about being home from Interlochen.
Since August 20th, I have read and reread those letters from the girls that I had spent six weeks living with countless times. Every time, my eyes well up with the memories I have for this summer, for these girls.