Jacqueline (Johnson) Onslow Ford to Morgans, Fall 1943 -- "So strange this time and place"

 

Dear Rosa and Murray,

So strange this time and space and matter of displacements; there you are far away and yet it is easy to imagine Tacoma, easy and painful imagining fresh butter, bacon, oh glory, rationing indeed, among all the green lawns and clean sidewalks ice-cream sodas and shiny bicycles; would you please lend me a fresh strawberry pecan nut special? did you ever stop to realize how much is wasted in circulars from bond houses alone? Let all talk of the State Dept. continue to fall on deaf I mean deef ears all tangled up as they are with their clean hands rolling snakes disguised as hoops, they (all of them of course) according to this oracle will find themselves in some sinister fairy circles before they eat their lobster thermidor, Rue Thermidor, again.

I do not think I like war stories but I think they have to be written. The accounts of action if Life are some of the best things I've read, especially one about Guadalcanal. I'm amazed at the tact and sensitiveness and good bare style that seems to give you the thing as it is; truth is a meaning too, and probably the one we Americans feel most, its austere sweetness even distempering us for other values that we need perhaps to fatten out our spirits. But I rather hope I shall not read because I hope you will not have to write any of the war experiences of Murray Morgan. We’ve just heard the news of the American bombing of the Roumanian oil fields, 99% of the Nazi supply, someone said. The British owned the wells, but the Americans have no hesitation therefore; what curiously thoughtful faces there must be behind the desks in both capitals sometimes, saying nothing but tapping their teeth with their pencils.

Gordon has been alternately living in Washington and Oregon, on sound and snow-peak, island and beach. To the point where I had to wire Californians Inc. who did not I am sorry to say quite come up to scratch; influence of Hollywood draping a beauty more or less ready for bathing around every scenic marvel including the frozen waterfalls, which meant, as a matter of focus, cutting out the waterfalls. As far as I can tell he has taken to living permanently somewhere in a sound, but whether Washington or Oregon I'm not sure; it's very bright blue in the picture.

Yesterday little grey kitten (who came with a blue bow) Chickadee had three different coloured cats, one an obvious scoundrel with a white, yellow, brown black and grey face, he ought to be drowned but we can't find anyone with the heart to do it. She is fine and not very surprised. One of them looks like her. I've just read that the discovery of a dark planet outside the solar system leads our most responsible astronomer to say there are probably thousands of inhabited planets, all dark, all not doing anything but revolving in a permanent black-out; all dark boats launched on their indefinite length fixed cruise for to see and to admire.

Lake Patzcuaro "That reflecting stillness in which all things are double"  Rosa Morgan photograph

 

 

 

 

 

 

There is a wonderful storm going on, the porches are all wet, the corn lying down and the swallows taking baths. The garden is beautiful now with a forest of green weeds on the terraces and morning-glories climbing up the pillars. The lake has begun to have again in the early morning and before the afternoon storms that reflecting stillness in which all things are double, the boats seem to hang above the water in an enchanted glitter. It's like being inside a bi-valve shell and it is clear that progress could lose its meaning, or never come to have one. The word makes one ache a little; the experiment or the experience the Indians began is a broken one, it will never be finished now, and the sociologists will improve the group into bewilderment in monographs and the N.A.A (new Amer. age) will spread its vacancies of yellow shoes and radios.

Bill brought over your article in Coronet and it is expert intelligent and charming and sounded just like you. We enjoyed the Steinbeck too (an also ran). Bill's water-colours are slightly more marvelous each time he makes one and he has made a big one that tops everything that went before. And Carmela had made the most wonderful cake that I have tasted since my birthday (I still think of that marvelous chocolate frosting that I could not quite eat all of). Which brings me to the nice face of your Chona whom I saw in Patzcuaro one day all full of regret and memory asking "Quando va venir Rosita?"

Gordon says thanks very much for the 5 acre fruit trees and screened porch. We loved having a letter from you and hope you will write soon again; we do miss you, but really miss you, like a favourite thing broken; we send a thousand good wishes, no not a thousand, but as my brother said when he was little, more than a thousand...THREE HUNDRED.

Affectionately,

Jacqueline

Handwritten: August 2, 1943

P.S.

What I began this letter to say thank you for in a loud voice, The Parrington Three thick volumes in one has been left out: you are much too generous and the house is now overflowing with evidences of it from photographs and green jugs to letters and literature. I so say thin you, for both of us, it is something I've wanted such a long time.

P.S. It is really August 7.

margin notes -- Gordon has been working with such absolute devotion -- making experiments in technique and discarding picture after picture -- but the fruit is almost ripe -- we will send you a photograph.

[Wolfgang] Paalen has been critically ill as Bill has probably told you -- transfusions etc. but is better and beginning to draw again although he can't get out of bed -- it is mysterious fever, microbe infection -- maybe [illegible] fever -- Dyn will go on. I think it is nervous exhaustion too, already when he was here a few months ago he was not well.

I saw Manuel, Felicitas and the incredibly perfect infant Gorky yesterday afternoon -- they had just been married and Manuel was the one who seemed to feel being a bridegroom most -- Felicitas took it very calmly, feeding the baby and preparing gorditas for the evening celebration -- Manuel overflowing with joy in this baby, the world and Felicitas's advance in irreligion, not to speak of the two pages of [comical?] pictures you sent.