Featured Essay: Box Full of Letters

by Scott O'Kelley

We met in a used record store. I was a customer; she was the clerk. 

At the time I was a freelancer between paychecks, so I was making the walk of shame up to the counter with an armload of records to sell for pocket money.

I’d haunted this shop for ages and knew all the guys who worked there. And it was very much a guy place. So I was surprised—embarrassed, really—to be facing someone younger, hipper, certainly cuter than my buddies. Don’t worry, I didn’t part with any real gems, mostly stuff I knew I could either live without or reacquire if needed. This being the early ‘90s, used records weren’t nearly as sought-after as they are today. Great for collecting; not so great for selling.

Small talk ensued, names were exchanged, I tried my best not to look like a broke-ass loser selling records. One of my buddies came over to complete the transaction. She looked on, not saying “Wow, nice records” or “You have great taste” or anything at all really.

I left with cash in my pocket and that dull buzz in my stomach. You know how sometimes you meet someone and just have that feeling? I had that feeling. 

But I couldn’t very well ask her out and ask to borrow money for dinner, could I? So I waited. And I stopped by more than usual. Sometimes I saw her, most times I didn’t. It was spring and I knew this was a gap-year gig before grad school, so when I didn’t see her I’d get that dread feeling of a window slowly closing.

I’d also ask after her nonchalantly. Though apparently not as nonchalantly as I thought: my buddy had, unbeknownst to me, put in a very good word. So weeks later, when the check finally came and I could look her in the eye, she said yes.

Not sure how it is today, but thumbing through someone’s records when you went to their place for the first time was a must. Not in a judgy way, just to get your bearings, see if this was worth pursuing, and look for musical red flags. (In high school I’d crossed someone off my list because she called him DIE-lan.) Back then I was used to finding a middling stereo and the usual LPs: Tapestry, Rumors, a Joni Mitchell or two, sometimes a surprise rock and roll or R&B standout. OK, maybe it was a little judgy. But the first time I was at her place I was awed: The Feelies, Bessie Smith, Johnny Cash, Yo La Tengo. Some stuff I wasn’t familiar with: The Go-Betweens, Bettie Serveert, American Music Club; and some stuff I was: Strange Fruit, Billie Holiday’s Commodore collection. She had bought the copy I traded in. Yep, definitely worth pursuing.

We hit it off.

The summer was a delightful whirlwind, but fall—and her departure—loomed. She’d been staying with her sister and—besides the records and a pretty good stereo—had few possessions. So I convinced her to move in with me for the remaining 60 days or so. We’d work out the future when the future got here.

We joked about things moving quickly. We joked about expanding our record collections the way a royal marriage expanded kingdoms. We joked about marriage. 

We also expanded each other’s appreciations: I came to love American Music Club; she developed a passion for 45s. We took turns playing album sides, talking about what this song meant to us or memories associated with that album, helping each other understand the importance of this artist or why that record was, in fact, not to be dismissed.

Then I helped her move halfway across the country. Everything in a van with room to spare.

Don’t know about you, but I’ve been in more than my share of long-distance relationships. They’re simultaneously wonderful and painful. If the wonderful outweighs the painful, there’s a chance. If not, you’re left with a box full of letters. And mixtapes. Her first letter from grad school came with a cassette of love-you-and-miss-you songs, a nice mix of hers, mine, and ours, with a few new ones sprinkled in. I responded. She responded back. Our letters and tapes were long, lovely, and indulgent the way letters and tapes should be.

I visited over Thanksgiving. She came home for Christmas. I moved out there in March.

The place was a college-music wonderland: clubs, scenes, bands. Lots of record stores. A typical Saturday was a trek to all our favorites, several stores spread over surrounding communities. Then Saturday nights became “record nights,” and we’d spin the day’s purchases or take turns playing songs one after the other, making sure the next cut followed lyrically or thematically or meaningfully like a real-time mixtape.

And our record collection kept growing—as record collections do—along with our shared enjoyment: We invested in better gear, sought out rarer copies, mail ordered snazzy remasters, occasionally hawked records at shows or spun 45s at local clubs. We loved our records the way other couples loved their kids. In fact, we joked about never being able to split up because who would get the records? By that point the boundaries of hers and mine had blurred. We bought stuff together. She’d grown to appreciate Neil and Dylan and early Alice Cooper. I loved the music from her college years. No way we could sort out whose was whose.

We’d been together about 10 years when she first told me. And I was the first person she’d ever told, which softened the blow, but didn’t much change the reality. But we both wanted to stay together and worked on working things out. We checked in with each other a lot, talked endlessly, sitting on the couch spinning one album after another. Records helped work things out. Our collection kept growing.

About another 10 years later she finally admitted that this couldn’t be ignored. We still loved each other, were still best friends, but some things are just bigger than what two people may want. When you love someone you want them to be happy. Dammit.

Even though it felt sudden, the end was gradual: We’d helped each other, offered support when needed. Kept playing records through it all.

When she finally moved out—another town and a fresh start—I helped her move again. Everything still fit in a van with room to spare. 

The split was more than fair: I kept the house and just about everything in it, including the records, despite the fact she’d been the major breadwinner most of our time together and could’ve by rights asked for everything. But that was part of her fresh start. And though we never talked about it, I think we both knew that whoever kept all those records would inherit all the memories and emotions attached to them. 

We also agreed the records weren’t going anywhere and she could get whatever she wanted whenever she wanted.

I still played them, but not as much and certainly not in the same way. Some days spinning a record was a nice release of tamped-down anger or unresolved grief. Other days it was cathartic and exhilarating, almost like before. But there were those songs and albums I knew to avoid—didn’t even want to think about or see, much less hear. That took a while.

And we kept in touch: We’d check in on holidays and call on birthdays or when we heard something new we thought the other would like. Though we’d both moved on, we were still friends: She came to my wedding; I’ve hung out with her and her wife.

Last year I finally got the email, a sheepish message broaching the subject of the records: It’s up to you, Don’t feel you have to, Only if you don’t want them, etc., etc. As I said, she could by rights request just about everything, but instead attached a very meager list of about 500 “records I’d be interested in.” 

Some things I’d forgotten about, others I was surprised she didn’t ask for. Like that Billie Holiday record. It was mine, then it was hers, then ours. Now it’s mine again. I both hated and enjoyed going through her list and pulling records off the shelves and boxing them up. It was the last bit of finality, but we were enjoying music together again, sort of. It also helped me dive back into long-neglected albums and listen to songs I’d avoided. 

One of those was A.M., Wilco’s first album. I’m pretty sure “Box Full of Letters” prompted a laughing discussion of divvying up the records so many years ago. I played it for the first time in a decade. I played that song over and over and over again. It made me happy. The wonderful was outweighing the painful.

The nine or 10 boxes of records just fit in my car—no room to spare this time—and I was looking forward to driving down for the weekend, seeing her and her wife and their new house, hanging out, catching up. Record shopping. 

On the drive down I played A.M., listened to “Box Full of Letters.” A lot. 

Got a lot of your records

In a separate stack

Some things that I might like to hear, but I

Guess I’ll give ‘em back

I cried. I felt good. Probably cried some more. Definitely smiled.

Scott O’Kelley is currently a counselor, educator, and state mental health director, who used to work in record stores. Now he just fantasizes about it. A lifelong music fan, he’s been buying and listening to records since the Nixon administration.