15th October, 1929
12 Patchin Place, Greenwich Village, New York, NY
My Dearest Charles,
I’ve begun this letter a dozen times, each attempt crumpled and tossed into the wastepaper basket beside my writing desk like autumn leaves scattered by an unforgiving wind. The words seem inadequate—how does one capture the tempest of emotion that has been churning within me these past weeks? Yet here I sit again, fountain pen trembling in my hand, because the silence between us has become more unbearable than my clumsy attempts at eloquence.
You wrote in your last letter of the changing seasons in Missouri, of the maples turning crimson and gold, of morning frost that silvers the grass outside your apartment window. How beautifully you paint these pictures with your words, darling—I can nearly smell the woodsmoke from distant chimneys and hear the rustle of dying leaves beneath your feet. But whilst you describe the peaceful transformation of your world, mine has become increasingly chaotic, and I find myself caught between wanting to share every tumultuous detail with you and fearing that you could never truly understand the peculiar madness of my metropolitan existence.
The frustration gnaws at me daily, Charles. Not frustration with you—never that—but with this impossible distance that stretches between us like an ocean of wheat fields and prairie towns. I wake each morning in my tiny Village flat, sunlight filtering through windows that overlook cobblestone streets where artists and radicals debate the future of America, and I ache for your presence with an intensity that frightens me. When Mrs. Kellerman from the apartment below plays her gramophone too loudly, when the elevated train rattles my teacups at dawn, when I discover a new gallery tucked away in some forgotten corner of the city—my first instinct is always to turn and share the moment with you. But you are not here, and the space where you should be feels like a physical wound.
Yesterday, I attended a party in Chelsea where everyone spoke breathlessly of the future—of aeroplanes that will soon carry passengers across the Atlantic in mere hours, of talking pictures that will revolutionise entertainment, of women who might one day hold positions of real power in government and industry. I found myself thinking of your letters, of your thoughtful observations about progress and tradition, and I wanted desperately to debate these possibilities with you. Instead, I stood amongst strangers, smiling and nodding whilst my heart remained hundreds of miles away in Missouri.
But it is not merely the distance that torments me, my love. It is the growing fear that perhaps we are too different, that the chasm between our worlds cannot be bridged by affection alone. You write so tenderly of quiet evenings with books and classical music, of Sunday strolls through Forest Park, of dinner parties where conversation flows like gentle streams. Your world sounds peaceful, orderly, reassuring—everything mine is not. Here, I live amongst bohemians and dreamers, where respectability is often viewed with suspicion and where a woman’s independence is both celebrated and scrutinised in equal measure.
I fear, Charles, that you see me through rose-coloured spectacles, that your romantic nature has transformed me into some exotic creature who represents escape from convention rather than the complicated, modern woman I truly am. What happens when you discover that I sometimes smoke Turkish cigarettes whilst sketching in Washington Square? That I’ve been known to argue politics with men twice my age in Village cafés? That I own books your mother would certainly consider scandalous? Would you still write such beautiful letters if you witnessed me dancing the Black Bottom at three in the morning, or saw me defending the rights of working women with a passion that might shock your more conservative colleagues?
The fashion world grows more competitive daily, and I often return home exhausted from battles fought in editorial meetings where men dismiss my ideas with patronising smiles. When I attempt to capture these struggles in letters to you, I find myself softening the harsh realities, painting prettier pictures because I fear you might think me too strident, too unfeminine, too far removed from the type of woman a respectable Missouri journalist should love.
Yet despite these fears, despite this maddening frustration with our circumstances, I cannot bring myself to suggest we end this correspondence. Your letters arrive like benedictions, Charles. Your gentle romanticism soothes something wild and restless within me that I didn’t even realise needed soothing. When you write of your dreams for our future together, I find myself imagining conversations that last until dawn, sharing books that have moved us, creating a life that somehow honours both your need for stability and my hunger for adventure.
Perhaps that is what frightens me most of all—not that we are too different, but that I am beginning to need you in ways that contradict everything I believed about my independence. I, who prided myself on requiring no one, who moved to New York precisely to prove that a woman could forge her own path, now find my happiness increasingly dependent upon the arrival of cream-coloured envelopes bearing Missouri postmarks.
Tell me, darling, that these fears are merely shadows cast by too many sleepless nights. Tell me that love can indeed bridge the distance between your ordered world and my chaotic one. Tell me that when we finally meet again, the magic we’ve woven through these letters will not dissolve like morning mist.
Until then, I remain, with all my contradictions and complications,
Your devoted Grace
P.S. I’ve enclosed a sketch of the autumn view from my window—not maples and meadows, but fire escapes and brick buildings catching the afternoon light in ways that somehow seem just as beautiful.
Bob Lynn | © 2025 Vox Meditantis. All rights reserved.
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