Lady Juliet –
I will tell you this – the first of many secrets I should like to divulge to you – that a lifetime seems to have passed between the moment I decided to write this letter, and the moment upon which I have finally marred your eyes with my crude words. For though I am unquestioningly loyal in my devotion to you, there is nothing I can say to, for, or respecting you which has not already been penned by women more intelligent than I, recited by the uninspired, conceived in the minds of all who are affected by you.
And I assure you, Juliet, we are all affected by you.
There are those that would seek to demean you, to ascribe your actions to the callow stupidity known to unworldly children. There are those who laugh at your love, those who condescend to you on account that they, already of an age at which they ought to have the capacity to feel those things they insist you did not, lack the imagination required to understand the depth of your experience. Having no scope of heart of their own, such persons misinterpret the profundity of your affections for their first awakening.
Juliet, never mind the songs written in your honour, the poetry celebrating your legacy, the paintings depicting your most hideous moment. Such material tributes are as impertinent to the actuality of a life lived in your wake as were your futile efforts to escape the maw of death.
You have lived on – far beyond the realm into which you were first given life, and even farther beyond that in which you exist – because those first persons met with your story were so deeply moved by the strength of your will and vibrance of your heart they carried you with them from the Globe into the world, and the world needed (and continues to need) you badly. Those qualities you possess – that brilliant determination, unbending steadfastness, exquisite vulnerability – are the gravity that have kept us rooted for centuries: you are the definition, the embodiment, the physicalization of love in all its forms. Aphrodite bows at the altar of your balcony, for not even she has an influence comparable to the one you exert with the vivid honesty of your love.
Those people who seek to taunt and demean your story do so only because they feel your power and do not understand it. Were they in possession of an ounce of greatness, and courage enough to explore it, they might realise that their laughter is further confirmation of the immense journey you have known and they never will.
You are inescapable, Juliet. Every drop of a stomach, every fluttered eyelid, pounding heart, breathless sigh – it is you. Every brush of skin, tug of a sleeve, sore left foot, clammy palm, warm kiss – it is you. Every feeling of fullness, every cry of desperation, every fleeting second of fight, every hour spent in tears, every glance at the stars, every ray of hope – it is all you. You are everywhere and everything, you are the good and the unmentionable, the selfish and the sacrificial. You are life in death, you are death without life.
For my part, Lady, it was an honour to know you, even for as little time as I did, even in the measured intimacy in which we were acquainted. I do not know that I did you justice, for you will forever be an unattainable thing, and I your mere devotee, but how I flourished in the nurturing light of your love. To stand up straight, to walk boldly, to know fear as a silly little thing, to fight, to breathe, to play pretend, to be kind, to try again, to love valiantly, to die with great desire…these are the gifts you have given me.
My mother has impressed upon the importance of thank-you cards, and I, upon myself, the importance of love letters. And so, Lady Juliet, I here combine the two – thank you, you extraordinary character. How I loved you, how I will always love you, and how grateful I am to you. There will never be enough words, not in Shakespeare’s dictionary nor my own bleeding heart, to demonstrate my forever friendship to you.
As those initial patrons of your words have immortalised you, so I here hope to deepen what they engraved. You have my love, Juliet, and my thanks, always and forever.
Until we meet again, in that fateful summer month in Verona.
Love,
Lettie Anne