Among the many letters I have kept is one from a friend, who signed off with “let me leave you with the enclosed …”
Ah, yes, the missing “enclosed”. This is one of those letters in which I did NOT keep whatever clipping, photo or other treasure came with the letter.
I do wonder why, in multiple cases, I did not keep what came with the letter. Usually I did keep them – in other letters I’ve found photos and other ephemera. Letters are always worth keeping and I’ve kept most, but they are also moments in time. The contents might call for preserving or one might choose to discard. And so it goes with enclosures; they are separate, after all, and prone to misplacing. They are incidental to the main document, inherently expendable.
If you will permit the contradiction, it points to a distinct commonality-yet-difference with letters and emails. They both can come with “attachments” but with the email it’s another electronic document. It’s usually part of the purpose of the main email – either adjunct or purpose.
With a letter, any attachment is a bonus. My friend Bill Weiler and I exchange regular letters and always there are three or four cartoons with it – a joyful tradition we’ve done at least once a month for about three years.
The cartoons are enclosures, a word that like “attachment” sounds official and business-like, except that the connotation of enclosing is somehow more intimate than attaching. (Or is it? After all, “we’re attached” is a more-or-less familiar euphemism for being emotionally involved…)
Sometimes I look first at the cartoons and then read the letter, sometimes the letter first. It depends on my mood, I suppose. Either way, enclosures are that pleasant extra, like at the movie theater when you used to get a couple of cartoons before the main attraction.
Attachments abound.
Which makes all the sadder the fact of re-reading letters from 40 years ago sans the enclosure so referred. It was loose and separate, did not fit tightly into the envelope like the letter itself, but why was I not more careful to retain it? What was in that enclosure? Why did the sender see fit to include it?
In many cases I will never know, and perhaps it is an indication of the non-essential nature of the enclosure. But it must have mattered, otherwise why was it sealed up and sent along? I suppose I should look to my own motivation for enclosing a clipping or comic strip: “here’s something extra” – not the main event, just the cartoon before the feature.
Lost enclosures are comparable to lost – or errant – correspondents. Some remain, some fall away.
They were always part of the communication, just not permanent. — N.R.