7:02 p.m. - 2024-02-26
Promises

I've been away from home for a few days now. I had to add a little update from the bathroom while she cooks dinner after reading a news story today. Pattie Boyd, the extraordinarily beautiful wife of George Harrison back in the day has announced she is selling excerpts of Eric Clapton's love letters that he had secretly sent to her. These were letters written when Mr. Clapton was pursuing his friend George Harrison's wife. It was the worst kept secret affair in rock history at the time and it resulted in Pattie having a full blown affair with Eric Clapton. She eventually divorced George, and married Eric but he messed that up after doing the whole sex, drugs, and alcohol thing rock stars did in those days.

What interested me was that Pattie Boyd kept all his love letters and as Eric Clapton is still in the land of the living, he must have been thinking "Oh No!" as he ate his cornflakes at breakfast today while reading the news. George Harrison has been dead and gone for a long time so at least he isn't around to find out about these love letters. It made me think, does everyone keep the love letters they were sent for sentimental reasons, even if they were from lost or past loves? Is that a dangerous thing to have lying around the house if you are now settled in a long term relationship or marriage? Do people have a secret box stashed somewhere or a locked drawer with hand written letters from people who loved them enough to express their feelings and thoughts in that way?

I must admit I do have such a locked box with every love letter that has been sent to me in my life from people i've known. The last time I opened the box was as the pandemic hit because my first tangle with covid was fairly serious and I thought at the time I might not get a chance to read them ever again. There are some very tasty letters in that box, mostly all from lovers I met after my divorce. There is a batch from first wife and I've shared them with her in recent years. We both had a good giggle at the words she wrote to me as a young loved up woman. The pet names, the nonsensical love poems, the declarations, the feelings and the dreams she had, the hopes of a future with me. The naughty stuff she dreamed of doing, and there was plenty of that.

She never kept any of my letters and when I asked her why, she said it was a case of washing that man right out of her hair in the early years after we split. I understood that. For me, I'd forgotten about the letters I had back then, or I may have done the same as she did. She said she regretted doing so and confessed I had been the only person who ever really wrote her proper love letters.

I'd normally never think of publishing such letters and to be honest who would be interested in them anyway? There are a few old girlfriend's I could think of who might take umbrage at having words they wrote to a person they once loved enough to share their innermost thoughts via pen and paper revealed to the world. The other thing is that the content of a love letter to someone you are no longer with doesn't really mean anything anymore and most people proabably don't remember what they wrote anyway. "I'll love you till I die" or " I'll love you until the sky falls down" declarations are a case in point. Umm...wait a minute you dumped me but you are still alive? And the sky is still up there where it should be?

I still hold on to my letters and for me maybe that's because I like to be reminded that at some point in my life someone who was inspired by love wrote a letter to me of their own freewill to tell me they loved me and I meant the world to them. That's a powerful thing to let go of, especially if you are a romantic at heart.

Here is a quote from one of Mr.Clapton's love letters to Pattie Boyd that has been published online already.

"If you want me, take me, I am yours… if you don't want me, please break the spell that binds me.
To cage a wild animal is a sin, to tame him is divine. My love is yours."

Here is another quote from a letter that was written to me. I won't say from whom.

"You’ve always been the half with the better way with words so I guess I should just say these things the best way I know how. I love you, I miss you, I want you, and I need you. A lot of things may change between us but those will always remain the same, I promise you that."

Ha! Promises, promises...

Ok, must dash. It's time for dinner. We are having Mac & Cheese with Broccoli & a side of garlic bread.