The Price of a Bonafide Love Letter

 

bonafide - adjective - genuine, real (Google).

How many of you out there in cyberspace have a bonafide, antique, handwritten love letter hidden somewhere in the depths of a drawer, perhaps beneath your socks or unworn, starting-to-yellow white lingerie or boxer shorts? If you were lucky enough to have one written to you at some point in your life, perhaps one expressing bonafide emotions, most likely you saved it and put it somewhere. (After you read the rest of this, go and find it.) Most likely you didn't sell it. Or did you? 

Over the weekend, I found myself browsing through much miscellaneous, rock 'n roll memorabilia at the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino in Atlantic City. At seven o'clock in the morning, I had two hours to kill before I would have to find a spot on the boardwalk so that I could cheer on my daughter and two friends running in the Rock and Roll half marathon (which isn't connected to the hotel). As a singer-songwriter and Jersey girl–born, bred, and at present, boarding in my own Jersey Cape Cod–I was drawn to the vault near the casino of the hotel, one room featuring a number of sundry artifacts once belonging to some of New Jersey's celebrity singers and musicians, luminaries such as Bruce Springsteen, Clarence Clemens, Frank Sinatra, Whitney Houston, Bon Jovi, etc. Most obvious, displayed on the back wall beneath the haven of plexiglass were all three pages of a bonafide love letter that Bon Jovi's guitarist Richie Sambora had handwritten in black ink on flowery, feminine stationery to one of his first paramours. 

Of course, being somewhat of a romantic voyeur, I had to read the whole relic, especially as Richie's script was so beautifully legible (unlike Bruce's lyrics displayed on an adjacent wall), and no one relies on good penmanship anymore. (In fact, most don't even know what it is.) The letter was stunningly forthright, filled with authentic feelings, feelings that often (usually) change over time. Such was probably the case, otherwise the receiver of the beatific prose would not have sold it to the Hard Rock Hotel. Most likely, a few months afterwards, the woman (who was not Heather Locklear) and Richie found themselves booked into separate rooms at the Heartbreak Hotel instead. In any case, I have to say that I feel sorry for Richie, for having one's soul exposed to the public on a daily basis can't be easy. But then again, I am quite sure he doesn't think about it often as he probably doesn't frequent Atlantic City. Could it be possible that he doesn't even know it's there? 

So what's the takeaway here? Even if your ex just happens to be a celebrity, try not to sell or discard remnants of a romantic past even if it didn't pass the test of time. You may just pick up the scent of nostalgia in the air and want a whiff of it in the present if only to convince yourself that once upon a time, true love was bonafide. 

#word-to-words, #spilled thoughts, #vocabulary, #good advice, #personal essay, #vocabulary