I hope this isn’t Ophelia’s pet name for Hamlet. When they’re out to the movies, or whatever, I hope she’s not like, “Put your arm around me, my lord.” I hope she’s not like, “Oh, kiss me again, my lord.”
“My lord, my lord, my lord.”

I have to wonder what she actually calls him when they’re alone. Now, of course, it’s possible in this society, that they’ve never been alone – but many signs would point to the opposite being true. Let’s assume they’ve had some private conversations and let’s assume they’ve had some physical intimacy. And if all of those things are true, then she MUST have been calling him SOMETHING besides “my lord,” and if she’s been calling him other things and then calls him my lord in every sentence suddenly, well, it must send up kind of red flag for Hamlet, especially if he spent some time at the top of their relationship getting her to call him Hamlet or something.

If someone compelled me to break up with someone I loved and insisted I return his letters, I think those letters would feel hot in my hand. I’d know I had to give them away – something has convinced me that it must be done – but if I’d experienced those letters with all the love and sweetness, if I’d cherished them, if I’d slept with them under my pillow, smelled them, run my fingers over them, wrapped them up in ribbon to be assured none would be lost, I’m not sure I could surrender them without a little internal fight.
My hand might be offering them, but I might not loose my fingers quite enough to let them go or I might offer them in such a way that brought them closer to me, rather than far away. Or I might turn away as I offered them, hoping not to witness their loss. I might, in fact, not offer them up honestly. I couldn’t. Not if I loved them.

What the heck does a noble mind have to do with anything? (Aside from rhyming with unkind and giving this line the feel of an ending.) Rich gifts go sour on any kind of mind if the giver turns into a jerk. If you gave me a car and then turned into an asshole, I’d want to sell that car, stat, no matter whether my mind was noble or not.

But Ophelia uses this “noble mind” phrase at least twice in this scene. This noble mind appears to be hers. The next noble mind is his. Noble minds are clearly important to our girl, Ophelia. And I wonder if this is her value or her father’s. It’s not a phrase I can think of him using, so it may well be her own. The idea of that pleases me – since Ophelia seems to have so little that is truly hers. Even a verbal tic would be a little something.

This sort of thing just doesn’t work with texts and emails. While we exchange probably more with the written word than ever before, we have lost the material pleasures and pain of written communication. In order to return someone’s “letters” today, you’d have to first print out all the stuff and you’d have to delete them from your email program and your server, maybe and my devices that collect emails, like your phone or your tablet.

A love letter used to smell good. It felt good. You could hold it in your hand and know that the paper you held had been held by your beloved. The ink you run your finger over came from a pen between the beloved’s fingers. Did he scent this paper or is this just how his rooms smell or him? You could bind letters up with ribbon and treasure them as a series, watch the handwriting shift and charge from letter to letter, notice the use of a different pen, different doodles in the margins.
A packet of letters could live, treasured, in an underwear drawer or a treasure box. A secret pocket, perhaps or under a pillow. Paper. Ink. Atmosphere.

I used to be a real sucker for words. Even if I didn’t believe them, they could still go straight to my guts. A man who could say flattering things to me sweetly and believably could send me into a flustered happy flurry. I treasured cards and letters and poems and songs.

I’m partnered now with a man who mostly calls me nice. I should say here that “nice” is extremely loaded for me. I have hated being called nice since the 4th grade when almost every student in Mrs. Wheeler’s class wrote “Emily is nice” when called upon to write something about me. I don’t particularly relish “nice” even now.

But flattering words aren’t this man’s cup of tea and I can somehow do a translation trick of hearing “I love you” when he says, “You’re nice.”

And his “You’re nice” is backed by a thousand acts of kindness and understanding that no one with a flattering tongue or flattering could ever even approach.

So even with words that aren’t particularly meaningful, he still manages to give me some of that sweet breath. 

My friend’s wife cheated on him – broke his heart and the ground on which he stood. In the midst of all the betrayals, the little cruelties, the thoughtless vanities, the unconcerned callousness, one of the most painful things is a card she gave him before it all came to light.

It is full of tenderness and affectionate language and he quotes it now, with shock waves of pain, that radiate through the phone.
I can imagine that he might well appreciate returning this card and all other sweetly penned bits of paper. Even better than burning them, returning letters might give at least a little bit of satisfaction, a little like unburdening yourself and giving it to the person who gave it to you.

Really? How longéd long could that be? She just started refusing his letters and access, etc – a few days before it would seem. Has it been ages, really? Did she long to return them as soon as they were sent?

It raises some questions for me, this line. Is it a word for word line reading from her father? Did Polonius drill her on her opening lines before sending her out as Hamlet bait?
What exactly does Polonius think is going to happen? That Ophelia returns Hamlet’s letters and he falls on his knees with love? That somehow Hamlet will read them to her, beg her to stay, try to win her back? Even if this love scene weren’t being observed (which, very likely, both Hamlet and Ophelia are aware of) it would not necessarily prove a love relationship. Sometimes when you look at people breaking up, they don’t resemble the people they were before at all. It’s sometimes hard to imagine them having been lovers at all as the darkness pours in – the vitriol, the heartbreak, the recriminations, whatever.

I would like to see a scene in which Polonius rehearses what he thinks this scene will be, where he plays Hamlet and tries out all of theories while making Ophelia say her lines properly.

So formal. So businesslike. 

If my lover greeted me like this (or some variation on it) I’d have an instant knowledge that something was up. There’s something so distant, so full of niceties. She calls him lord. (Something she does in almost every subsequent sentence) and then also your honor. So she’s laid on two titles and additionally, she’s tacked on this “for this many a day” business which serves to heighten the formality. She’s talking like a LeBeau or an Osric. Can this possibly be the way she speaks to him normally? If so that’s a pretty dull relationship. (Or maybe it can be sexy, “Good my lord, would it please your honor to remove your shirt?”) It could be that she’s trying to signal to Hamlet that they are not alone. Unlikely. But a nice thought. Or it could be that this is how Polonius expects his daughter to speak to the Prince and so she has to put extra effort in, due to being watched.
Or maybe this “my lord” business is just Ophelia business as usual. 

I’m at an age in which people are now calling me ma’am on occasion. I hate it. I’ve gotten used to Miss and Ms. and ma’am feels like a terrible demotion.

What’s funny though, is that ma’am would seem to be a shortening of madam and madam, I somehow don’t object to. Madam makes me feel like a queen, worthy of respect, with a hint of power. Ma’am makes me feel like an old lady trying to buy lingerie from a snotty young salesgirl.

Ophelia bought a letter repellent.

You spray it on, like an insect repellent

And when a letter comes flying at you,

It activates a force-field that sends

The letter flying off in the opposite direction.

She walks down the corridors

As letters fly away from her –

An explosion of paper flying off from her like fireworks.

 

Which makes me think –

Why did they need letters

When they clearly are physically in the same place?

I like the idea of sending

A letter to my lover who sits across the table from me.

(unless of course he’s got some letter repellent).

Now we send emails like this.

People will send them across the room,

Or to someone sitting right next to them.

I’ve sent emails to someone sitting inches away.
But this is not nearly so romantic as a letter –

The content is rarely beautified

It’s usually, “Here’s that document you need.”

The sheer volume of emails arriving everyday make me long for an email repellent.