0:00

Hi,

0:05

sweet, How are you okay?

0:06

So?

0:07

I was just thinking about all that you do. You're

0:09

a mother, a professional, m

0:11

D, a friend,

0:14

and for all of that, I just wanted to say

0:16

to you, bravo. You

0:20

know what that's doing to me? Right, I'm

0:22

just trying to say bravo. Do

0:25

you remember who once said bravo to you and you didn't

0:27

like it?

0:29

Yeah, some girl at a party.

0:30

It really upset you. You don't like

0:32

to be bravo. I

0:34

don't like attention, but don't you feel you're a person who

0:37

deserves attention?

0:38

It just makes me tense.

0:40

Well, I'd like to shine a spotlight onto

0:42

you.

0:43

But if I don't like attention, why

0:45

do you then say a

0:47

spotlight?

0:48

A spotlight doesn't A

0:51

red hot spotlight does not necessarily

0:53

mean attention. It's just a

0:55

spotlight from

1:02

Gimblet Media. I'm Jonathan Goldstein

1:04

and this is Heavyweight. Today's

1:07

episode Isabelle.

1:23

In nineteen ninety nine, an old fashioned

1:26

rectangular suitcase was found

1:28

on a Brooklyn street corner by a man

1:30

named Ed. For fifteen

1:32

years, Ed kept the suitcase stowed

1:35

away in a storage locker in his basement

1:37

when he accepted a job overseas he

1:40

carried it over to his neighbor, a

1:42

woman named Kendra. Kendra

1:44

pushed the suitcase under an armchair, and

1:47

that's where it's been sitting ever since, collecting

1:49

dust until

1:52

today.

2:01

Kendra lives in a small apartment building

2:03

on a residential street, shoes

2:08

off either way. She

2:10

takes me into her living room and pulls the suitcase

2:12

out from under an armchair. It's

2:15

battered and old, like something you'd see in

2:17

a black and white documentary, clutched

2:19

in the hand of a door to door salesman drifting

2:21

from town to town.

2:24

Scott like sneeps.

2:28

She opens up the suitcase and

2:30

there they are the letters, hundreds

2:33

of them, charting from beginning to end,

2:35

the relationship between a young man named Brad

2:38

and a young woman named Isabelle. This

2:41

is a lot the

2:44

letters were written over the five years they dated.

2:47

The relationship was almost entirely long

2:49

distance. Isabelle was from Venezuela

2:52

and Brad was from North Carolina.

2:55

He I know went to art

2:57

school, because a number of letters are addressed

2:59

to him there.

3:00

Uh huh.

3:01

She I don't know where

3:03

she went to school, but she clearly is also

3:05

an artist. I mean, look at this, like wow.

3:07

Kendra pulls out three photos attached

3:10

by spiderwebs of white thread. Each

3:12

photo shows Isabelle, tussled

3:14

hair and heavy eyeliner, folding

3:16

an old brownie camera. During

3:19

those ignorant days, the only way to create

3:21

a selfie or self portrait,

3:23

as historians tell us they were called, was

3:26

to pose with a camera in front of a mirror,

3:29

like an animal.

3:31

They're really really cute.

3:33

In another photo, Isabelle and Brad

3:35

sit on the beach in sunglasses and formal

3:37

wear. The photo looks like a still

3:39

from a black and white film by John Luke

3:42

Dard. They're in their teens early

3:44

twenties. They are young and beautiful.

3:47

This is a menu.

3:50

Among the letters and photos are dozens

3:52

of keepsakes, ticket stubs, and

3:54

coins from foreign countries.

3:56

Well this one has a leaf in it.

3:58

Oh well look at that. Open that up. Each

4:00

letter is a mini handmade art project.

4:03

Even the envelopes are carefully decorated.

4:06

On one, just under Brad's name, Isabell's

4:09

drawn a row of fish swimming by.

4:12

The letters were written by Isabelle and

4:14

sent to Brad, who filed away each

4:16

one in his suitcase. The

4:19

story of their relationship told through

4:21

Isabelle's letters is like a diary

4:23

where half the pages are missing. Kendra

4:26

pulls out a letter at random.

4:29

This is from Christmas Eve nineteen

4:31

ninety and she says,

4:33

Brad, today I got the best Christmas present

4:35

ever. I'm talking about your letter and

4:38

picture. Thank you so much for telling

4:40

me your true feelings. Ooh, this is like a

4:42

really personal one. You should

4:44

not be afraid that I won't be there for you when you might

4:46

need me. I want to be there. You are

4:48

my boyfriend and friend. Also, to

4:50

me, you're more important than any other friend I have.

4:54

I guess that with time, our trust toward each other

4:56

will grow, just as each

4:58

day I feel I know you a little bit more. Believe

5:00

me. I'm also scared of getting hurt. I

5:02

figured that if I'm scared that you might

5:05

hurt me, and you're scared that I might hurt you, then

5:07

it must mean that we both know we don't

5:09

want to hurt the other person. No, the

5:13

last thing I would want to do is to hurt you or

5:15

even see you hurt. It's

5:18

so romantic, it's just so.

5:22

It's so vulnerable.

5:26

They both were so afraid of getting hurt, and

5:28

I mean that's how people always go into relationships, you

5:30

know, and then probably

5:32

at least one of them did get hurt in

5:35

the end.

5:41

Kendra happens to be going into a relationship

5:43

right now. She's about to move in with

5:45

her boyfriend. This is why

5:47

she's called me here today. Starting

5:50

a new relationship with a suitcase containing

5:52

a dead relationship feels inauspicious,

5:55

so she can't keep it, but at the same

5:58

time, she doesn't want to throw the lets away.

6:01

So you've gone through all of these

6:03

Yeah.

6:04

I don't read Spanish, and a

6:06

lot is in Spanish, so I haven't read the ones in

6:08

Spanish.

6:09

But it sounds like you've you've

6:13

created like little stories about what it what,

6:16

what their relationship could it possibly have been?

6:18

I mean it's kind of irresistible.

6:20

Yeah, to do that, and

6:22

what what's your take? Like, you think

6:24

that it ended up on the sidewalk

6:26

and found by your friend because it was disposed

6:29

of.

6:29

I think it was disposed

6:31

of. Yeah, my gut

6:35

is that he got rid of it,

6:38

possibly because he was

6:41

in another relationship and New

6:43

York apartments don't have room

6:45

for a lot of I don't want to say secrets. I

6:47

don't think this was a secret, but a

6:49

lot of past stuff.

6:58

We should find her and we should get

7:00

it to her, because it's an

7:03

amazing time capsule of who she was

7:05

at this time, and it would like

7:07

reopen this part of herself that she

7:09

maybe forgot about. I

7:11

mean, imagine if somebody contacted you out

7:14

of the blue and they were like, hey, guess what, I have a

7:16

bunch of art and photos and

7:18

stuff that you made and that

7:20

was about you from the

7:22

time that you were I don't know whatever, like sixteen

7:25

to twenty two or whatever

7:27

it is. I mean, wouldn't

7:29

you want that back?

7:32

Of course I would, especially

7:34

if it were something so irreplaceable. None

7:37

of us will probably ever again have a collection

7:40

of one hundred handwritten letters mailed

7:42

to us with photographs developed by an

7:44

enlarger in a dark room. One

7:47

day, when drones capture our every

7:49

moment, when each of our pensis,

7:52

written or perhaps unwritten, is

7:54

housed in an ever expanding cloud, there

7:56

may not be a need for such suitcases at

7:58

all. All right, So

8:01

I'm gonna I'm gonna take this off your

8:03

hands, and I'm gonna do you

8:06

sound sad?

8:07

I am sad now that it's like, really

8:10

the moment to say goodbye.

8:13

Take good care of it.

8:18

Thanks for going.

8:20

We say our goodbyes, and Kendra walks

8:22

me, suitcase in hand, to the front

8:24

door of her apartment. This one

8:27

up here, my marching orders had been

8:29

handed to me.

8:31

Oh no, it's just the top one.

8:32

I was determined to find Isabelle.

8:35

I think you lots the.

8:36

Bottom, and I would work tirelessly

8:39

until I did.

8:41

Can you want me to No?

8:42

I got it. Actually, although

8:46

New York apartments might not have a lot

8:48

of room for past stuff, they

8:51

certainly make up for it with an abundance of

8:53

locks. Yeah, actually, maybe you should.

8:55

Okay, sorry,

8:58

but as soon as I could get out, I'd set

9:00

off in search of Isabelle. That's

9:03

yeah, you should probably figure that out. It's probably

9:05

like a fire hazard if you.

9:08

Oh, okay, okay, great after

9:15

the break life outside this facacta

9:17

apartment.

9:18

Okay, take care, bye,

9:21

bye bye.

9:35

You'll say get guero

9:37

so s tode lo

9:40

case las muchachas.

9:43

No, this isn't Latin lover Antonio

9:45

banderis, but Latin lover

9:47

because he loves Latin. Jonathan

9:50

Goldstein. Since most

9:52

of the letters between Brad and Isabel are in

9:54

Spanish and my own Spanish is

9:56

like that, of a nineteen fifties Canadian housewife

9:59

wandering ta one in a novelty sized

10:01

sombrero. I need a translator,

10:04

someone to help me understand the letters

10:06

and get them back to Isabelle. And

10:09

so I enlisted Gimblet Media

10:11

editor, or

10:14

hey, just are you

10:17

ready for this? Jorge

10:21

and I are always getting up to what CEO

10:24

and Gimblet Media founder Alex Bloomberg

10:26

calls shenanigans, doing

10:28

stuff like Jorge hiding my chair each

10:31

morning, or Jorge stealing my laptop

10:33

while I'm in the bathroom and liking a whole bunch

10:35

of nickelback fan pages. Alex

10:38

discourages quote fraternizing

10:40

on company time unless

10:43

there's a valid business reason. Well,

10:46

Alex does returning a suitcase

10:48

full of personal history to its rightful owners

10:50

strike you as a valid business reason. Only

10:53

God can judge me, Alex, so stand

10:55

back and let my father do his job

10:58

and let Jorge and me do hours.

11:03

Gordeau are is Gordou

11:05

means something in Spanish.

11:07

Means fat fat. But it might be

11:09

a nickname like a you know.

11:10

Like my little fat one.

11:11

Yeah, but it's it's a term of endearment.

11:18

Jorge and I spend the afternoon, snacking

11:21

on honeydew slices and sifting

11:23

through honeydew juice soap letters. We

11:26

try to construct a timeline that will

11:28

lead us from the relationships beginning to

11:30

the discarded suitcase on the street.

11:32

So this is September twenty ninth, nineteen ninety three,

11:34

third of March nineteen ninety two, eighteenth, nineteen

11:37

ninety four, August ninth, nineteen ninety three.

11:40

The correspondence begins in December of

11:42

nineteen ninety when Brad and Isabelle first

11:44

met on Christmas vacation in Florida.

11:47

In these early letters, Isabelle offers

11:49

up little Spanish lessons, teaching

11:51

Brad basic vocabulary and grammar.

11:53

I'm going to show you the future tents to

11:55

caminas do usmana you

11:57

walk, You're going to walk.

11:58

It perhaps speaks through the intensity of his feelings.

12:01

But before very long at all, Brad's

12:03

language is good enough for her to switch over to Spanish.

12:06

Completely olaos

12:10

mar Cambo, Skvoa

12:11

and de lunez.

12:13

Isabelle travels a lot, so her letters

12:15

come from all over. Each one

12:18

is composed of precise capital letters

12:20

and arrives in an envelope that Brad

12:22

meticulously slits, always

12:24

along the width, careful not

12:26

to tear the drawings. A lot

12:29

of the letters are mundane stuff you'd

12:31

share across a dinner table or through

12:33

rapid texts.

12:35

Stucks. My

12:37

ears started to hurt and I went back to the apartment.

12:40

I don't like it when my ears hurt.

12:43

But for Isabelle and Brad, this kind of chit

12:45

chat was a slow process. Between

12:48

each message was a weight that lasted days.

12:51

Brad would wait to hear if Isabel's family had

12:53

begun to soften to the idea of her attending

12:56

art school, and Isabelle would wait to

12:58

hear if Brad had saved up enough money to

13:00

fix the brakes on his car, whether

13:02

he finally bought that photo and larger he had

13:04

his eye on.

13:05

I'm really happy that you bought the enlarger. I

13:07

know that that's a great thing and that you

13:09

really wanted it. Truly, it makes me

13:11

really happy.

13:13

Brad would wait to hear about what Isabelle's plans

13:15

were for the.

13:15

Night velcro

13:18

jumping. Tonight, we're going out to a disco

13:20

where there'll be velcro jumping. This

13:22

really is truly nineteen ninety two.

13:25

He'd wait to hear about her trip to Boston.

13:27

I'm really happy. I really really

13:29

like Boston, and I think that you'd like it

13:31

too. When I went to the Art Museum,

13:33

I wanted to have you with me. We'd be enjoying

13:36

each other so much. Well, someday

13:38

we will right.

13:40

The letter is stamped March of nineteen ninety

13:42

two. If Brad had been at

13:44

the museum, the two young photographers

13:47

might have seen the work of another young photographer,

13:49

Ansel Adams, whose early photographs

13:52

were on exhibit at the time. Many

13:54

of his early photos weren't of the barren landscapes

13:57

that made him famous, but if people

13:59

smoking, talking, dancing. The

14:02

photos in the suitcase are also portraits

14:05

that Brad and isabel took of themselves and

14:07

each other.

14:09

Oh wow, they're

14:12

so young, yeah,

14:14

Brad and Isabelle at a wedding, Brad and

14:16

isabel at a hike, sitting by a lake,

14:19

holding onto each other.

14:21

In every single one, they're looking

14:23

at the camera and not.

14:24

Smiling because they're cool art students.

14:26

That is definitely seemed that way.

14:33

And when they weren't together, they were making

14:35

plans, always looking forward to

14:37

the things they do when they next meet

14:39

like watching the tenth anniversary of the David

14:41

Letterman Show.

14:42

Yeah, gorddo,

14:44

when you fix your VCR, we can rent

14:46

it and watch it together.

14:48

O Gordeau had a broken

14:50

VCR.

14:51

That's so nice though.

14:52

Yeah, Isabelle says that

14:54

you'd already watched the episode, but wanted

14:56

to watch it with Brad. Watch Brad

14:58

as he watched Letterman rowe watermelons

15:00

off a roof and herd sheep into

15:02

a cab headed to LaGuardia Airport. And

15:06

then there are the love letters, and

15:09

the love that Isabelle expresses has

15:11

the feeling of a kid in love for the very first

15:13

time.

15:14

And when I thought that I couldn't

15:16

love you anymore, every day

15:19

I love you more. I'm so happy

15:21

to know that we're together. Sometimes

15:25

I wish I could just put time on pause so

15:27

that everything could get fixed, and when

15:29

I was ready to breastplay, we could

15:31

just continue happy and together.

15:36

Throughout these letters that span five birthdays.

15:39

That looks like a birthday one. This is a birthday

15:41

one for five Christmases, five

15:43

summers and winters.

15:44

It started to snow last night and it's still

15:46

going that.

15:47

Span years and countries. There's

15:50

always this vague hope that one day

15:52

they'd be together, really together,

15:55

in the same city, the same home, for

15:57

good.

16:04

But in the end Isabelle remained in Venezuela,

16:08

except Venezuela no longer felt like home.

16:10

She was aimless, knowing she should get

16:12

a job, but not knowing what she wanted

16:15

to do.

16:15

March fourteenth, nineteen ninety four, and

16:17

it's a fax.

16:19

She ended up taking a job at her brother's office,

16:22

which had a fax machine.

16:23

No se parami

16:26

vida. I feel totally lost.

16:29

I have no idea what I want for myself

16:31

or for my life.

16:33

As unsure as she was, there remained one

16:35

thing she always seemed sure of

16:37

her and Brad, because at no

16:39

point is there ever any sense that a

16:41

suitcase full of her letters would one day

16:43

end up abandoned. Orge felt

16:46

the same way.

16:47

The more I read, the more surprised I am that

16:50

these letters aren't you

16:52

know, somewhere with Brad, that they're not in

16:55

the basement that they owned together.

16:57

We searched the suitcase looking for the last

17:00

letter ever written. The postmarks

17:02

and addresses are many and keep changing.

17:05

Florida, Savannah, Boston, and finally

17:07

Venezuela. That's the very last letter. The

17:10

last letter was sent by Isabelle in March

17:12

of nineteen ninety five, almost five

17:14

years after they first met.

17:16

She says, Lodluya, No

17:18

York, Mikhayokomo, shock se

17:20

Emperor prefeti Boston, Solo pros

17:23

solo.

17:24

The address it's mail to is in New York. It

17:27

seems brad it just moved there to

17:29

start grad school in photography.

17:31

She's saying, she's really sad. She was shocked

17:33

that he decided to move to New York, oh really,

17:36

and that

17:38

that she knew that he had been thinking about

17:40

moving, but that she never thought

17:43

that he would move to New York. And

17:46

then she says that she talked to her mom, and her

17:48

mom helped her, helped her

17:50

think through it and understand that it was

17:53

a good decision for his career and that that's why

17:55

he was doing it. And that's

17:57

why she says, it's true.

18:00

You know, it's the center of photography. And

18:03

she says, God, you're very good

18:05

at photography. I'm sure

18:07

you. When you get your portfolio together, you'll find everything

18:09

that you want. One

18:11

thing that I noticed is that there everybody

18:13

in New York has an air of

18:16

confidence, of believing

18:18

that they're the best. And

18:21

if I saw that, then you don't have to worry, because

18:23

you too are good. You're better

18:26

than all of them. I'm sure

18:28

that it will go well for you.

18:30

You told me that you're not going to have a telephone in New

18:32

York. You know, I want to hear from you. I

18:35

need to know how you're doing. I miss you when

18:39

you move. I'd love to have your address.

18:41

Please call me and tell me what it is. I

18:44

promise you that we'll we'll talk only you

18:46

know, as little as possible, only what's necessary.

18:49

I imagine the last thing you need are big fat telephone

18:52

bills.

18:55

Sounds like he chose his

18:57

photography over their relationship.

19:01

Yeah, for sure.

19:02

And this is the last letter because he never maybe

19:05

he never sent her his address.

19:09

And the way that she signs it off is you

19:12

sa ps, try to write when you have

19:15

time.

19:16

Oh

19:19

am, I just getting like really sentimental or is this

19:21

like sad?

19:22

It's sad. Yeah.

19:29

Kendra's friend found the suitcase in nineteen

19:31

ninety nine, which means after

19:33

that last letter, Brad continued to

19:35

hold onto the suitcase in his small New

19:37

York apartment for four more years.

19:48

Isabelle had a very common name and

19:50

no presence on the Internet. So I

19:52

began looking for Brad. Since

19:54

all the letters were from Isabelle's pen, I'd

19:56

only gotten to know him through her as

19:58

a young man with a letter of and are in a broken VCR

20:01

determined to become a photographer, someone

20:04

who could hardly afford breaks for his car, but

20:06

was still going all in on a new photo and

20:08

larger and it looked

20:10

like his determination paid off. Brad

20:13

is now an architectural photographer, still

20:15

living in New York. His photographs

20:17

are no longer portraits, but sparse

20:19

empty interiors, a school

20:22

without children, a hotel without

20:24

guests. I dialed the number

20:26

on his website and explained that a suitcase

20:28

was found on a Brooklyn street corner and

20:30

passed on to a woman named Kendra, who

20:32

passed it on to me. Anyway, long

20:34

story short, it's a suitcase that has

20:37

all of these letters.

20:42

Does that ring any bells?

20:47

Yes?

20:53

What happened? Like? How did

20:56

this suitcase end up where

20:59

it was found on the street?

21:03

I let it go?

21:05

You mean you you you you? You threw it out?

21:09

Yes?

21:11

That that makes me surprised because

21:14

the letters from Isabelle sound

21:17

and feel really very affectionate.

21:19

You know, well, there

21:24

there was love.

21:27

Something happened. I don't know what. I

21:32

asked her to marry me, gave

21:35

her a ring. She

21:38

wasn't living in the country. I wanted

21:40

her to come move to New York. Uh

21:43

huh, and

21:48

she broke it off. Within

21:55

a year of her breaking up with me,

21:58

she got married. So

22:04

there's not much to do after that. It's

22:07

done.

22:11

I guess the impression that

22:13

I had was that maybe

22:17

you had broken

22:19

up with her.

22:21

No, certainly not.

22:24

What was she trying to preserve some kind of friendship

22:27

or something or remain in touch.

22:30

That would be likely. Yeah,

22:33

yeah, And I what's

22:35

what's the point of that? Once

22:39

you've gone

22:42

to that place with someone, you

22:45

can't you can't take it back

22:47

a notch. I mean, it's it's all or

22:50

nothing. And

22:53

she chose nothing.

22:57

She chose nothing, she chose.

22:59

Not married

23:01

to me. That's that's

23:03

how that seems to me. There's

23:11

nothing that I would do differently at this

23:13

point. It's this is I

23:15

have a different life now. You

23:20

know, I have an incredible wife

23:23

who has

23:25

worked with me and

23:27

and we have I just feel like we've

23:30

been through so much and

23:36

you know, it's it's a. It's not the

23:39

the path that I initially thought that I would

23:42

be on. I was convinced

23:44

that that that

23:48

it would have been with Isabelle. But

23:55

but at this point, I am happy to

23:57

be here, happy to be where

23:59

I am.

24:00

Yeah,

24:04

where are you?

24:05

Where are you? Are you in a car right now?

24:08

Yeah? I am?

24:10

Are you heading home?

24:13

Now?

24:13

I'm going to pick up my daughter from school?

24:23

Well, you know, I mean, it

24:26

seemed like Isabelle.

24:29

It seems like maybe the right thing to do would

24:32

be to get them back to her. Do

24:35

you know where she lives?

24:38

She lives in Italy.

24:51

Knowing that Isabelle's in Italy helped. After

24:54

some searching around, I found her on Facebook.

24:57

In her black and white profile picture, she's

24:59

hold an old fashioned camera to her face,

25:02

a self portrait in front of a mirror,

25:05

just like the kind she'd take when she was a teenager.

25:08

In the photo, the eye that is not looking

25:10

into the viewfinder is opened wide. We'd

25:13

assume that both eyes are opened wide.

25:16

I send Isabelle a message telling

25:18

her who I am, what I found, and

25:20

how I want to give it back to her, and

25:23

then I wait. The

25:25

first day of my weight is spent imagining

25:28

all the praise and gratitude that awaits

25:30

me.

25:31

Thank God for men like you.

25:35

I never imagined there were gentlemen as generous

25:37

as you. If

25:40

you hand deliver the suitcase, I'll

25:42

read you each letter after a picnic lunch

25:45

of Italian delicacies and my father's

25:47

vin grass You've

25:49

not truly ever tasted salami,

25:52

Goldstein grassias until you've eaten

25:55

it under a Tuscan sun.

26:02

The second day is spent indulging

26:04

more of these lunatical imaginings and

26:07

binge watching Mash in triumph. But

26:09

by the third day, still not having

26:11

heard back from Isabelle, I take

26:13

to my bed for more Mash, though now

26:16

binge watched in defeat. Why

26:18

wasn't she getting back to me? And

26:22

then, after a week and a half,

26:25

I receive a message, Hello,

26:27

Jonathan, Isabelle writes, the

26:30

letters are a part of my history, and

26:32

in history they stay. I do not

26:34

want to explain anything, neither

26:36

do I want the letters. Hope you understand.

26:40

Life goes on. I have a life,

26:43

wishing you all the best, Isabelle.

26:47

Isabelle also tells me how she now has a

26:49

family of her own. She has

26:51

a life. Brad has a life, Kendra

26:54

has a new life with a new relationship. Evidently,

26:58

everyone has a life except for one

27:00

person who stuck with an old suit case full

27:02

of letters written in a language he doesn't

27:04

even understand Hoblando,

27:07

of which how fluent was Isabel's

27:09

English? Anyway? Was something getting

27:11

lost in the translation? I

27:14

write her back, explaining that I don't want

27:16

anything from her. I don't even need to understand

27:18

what happened between her and Brad. That really

27:21

all I want is to give her back her letters. The

27:24

next day, Isabel writes back Jonathan.

27:28

She writes, I appreciate all

27:30

the trouble you've gone through to get a hold of me.

27:33

I have beautiful memories, but people

27:35

grow and change. I am

27:37

no longer the person who wrote those letters,

27:40

Isabel. While

27:42

all the peripheral characters, the Kendras,

27:45

the Jorgees, the Jonathans, feel

27:47

so invested in these letters that neither

27:49

belong to nor concern them, both

27:52

Isabel and Brad are not. They

27:54

have a similar way of being in the world, and

27:56

you can understand how they might have been drawn to one

27:58

another. They both seem to get

28:01

it, get something, something

28:03

that, for the life of me, I don't

28:05

understand at all, Isabelle,

28:09

I write. For me, the most

28:12

interesting thing about revisiting the past

28:14

and the person I was isn't even

28:16

finding out the ways in which I've changed, but

28:18

rather finding the ways in which I'm still the same

28:21

person. Discovering that common thread,

28:23

that thing that holds our lives together, gives

28:26

our lives continuity and meaning. Maybe

28:28

I'm talking about a person's soul. I'd

28:31

come to know Isabelle through her letters, and it

28:34

feels fitting that I'm still getting to know her

28:36

through her letters. And in spite of all

28:38

the technological advances of the intervening

28:40

years, I'm still left sitting around

28:44

waiting. Isabelle

28:55

writes back, I take from

28:57

the past the lesson it offers me and

28:59

move on. That's the only thing

29:01

that matters. That we learn something from

29:04

every situation lived, good or

29:06

bad. So to me, she writes,

29:09

life is one lesson after another, which

29:11

makes our soul grow and change. I

29:14

personally do not have one letter from anyone

29:16

in my past, and that doesn't

29:18

mean I had a bad past. It means

29:21

that I've learned and moved on. I

29:24

stop reading not one

29:26

letter from her past. I'm the kind

29:28

of person who saves post it notes stuck to

29:30

his computer screen by colleagues in the nineties,

29:33

someone who never once erased the contact

29:35

from his phone. Since

29:38

you are antithetical to my way of being, Isabelle

29:40

writes, I also leave you the

29:42

challenge of discarding that bunch of letters.

29:45

I am counting on you to do that. Who

29:48

knows, maybe doing it will help

29:51

you in some aspects of your own life.

29:54

Just remember, the future is built

29:56

as we move forward. Take

29:58

care, Jonathan, and as always,

30:01

the best to you, Isabelle.

30:12

After his death in nineteen twenty four, Franz

30:14

Kafka left behind a will instructing

30:17

his friend Max Brod to burn

30:19

all of his remaining writings, the unfinished

30:22

novels, the journals, the letters.

30:25

In nineteen thirty nine, just before the Nazis

30:28

invaded Prague, broad clutching

30:30

a suitcase containing all the papers

30:32

that could fit, boarded a train and

30:35

set out for Palestine, and

30:37

with that some of the most important

30:39

writing in the twentieth century was saved.

30:42

Max Brod's reasoning was that if Kafka

30:44

had really wanted his stuff destroyed, he

30:47

never would have asked Brod to do it. He

30:49

had to have known that Brod was the last person

30:52

who destroy work that he loved so much.

30:56

Isabelle is not Kafka, and I, though

30:59

I do admire is self justifying prevaricating

31:02

style, am not max Broad. Yet

31:05

after that final exchange, I unscrew

31:07

a bottle of bourbon, turn on mash

31:10

and struggle over Isabel's challenge. It

31:13

felt like a paradox. On one

31:16

hand, these letters don't mean anything

31:18

to me, but on the other hand,

31:20

discarding them just feels wrong. Throughout

31:24

your life, if it's a good long life,

31:26

you let go, and you let go of

31:28

your ambitions, your hair, the

31:31

people you love most, and

31:34

then one day, after a lifetime of

31:36

saying goodbye to the most important things,

31:39

you suddenly find yourself unable to unclutch

31:41

your hand from the handle of a suitcase

31:44

that isn't even yours. And

31:46

for close to thirty years, it seems no

31:48

one who carried this suitcase could easily

31:50

let go, not ed, not Kendra,

31:53

even Brad, the most motivated,

31:56

could only pack the suitcase, exit

31:58

the front door, and make it only so far

32:00

as the curb. And why

32:03

why can't any of us destroy the letters?

32:06

Is it because we believe in stories about love,

32:09

the beauty of youth, the idea

32:11

that somehow, contained within this little

32:14

suitcase, a relationship still

32:16

exists, one that's a stand

32:18

in for a relationship that we've all had and

32:21

lost. I've been looking forward

32:23

to giving Isabelle back these memories, but

32:26

Isabelle doesn't want my unsolicited gift.

32:29

Instead, she's offering a gift to me,

32:32

permission to do the thing I

32:34

normally cannot do, to simply

32:36

let go of the past. Being

32:39

unable to let go of the past feel small

32:41

somehow and marks you as petty, the

32:43

kind of person who holds onto grudges and

32:46

painful memories. But in

32:48

that net of memory, beautiful things get

32:50

trapped too, moments and emotions

32:52

that once moved you, or a version of

32:54

you, a first love, a great

32:57

meal, or that

32:59

one fall evening when you pick up

33:01

an innocuous looking suitcase that

33:04

had been sitting under your desk for months and

33:07

leave your office early with a Spanish

33:09

speaking friend.

33:10

We want to make sure it's also and.

33:12

Head out into the dark street, looking

33:15

for the perfect Brooklyn Street corner on

33:17

which to let it go.

33:19

There, how about under that street that.

33:22

Okay, hang on, I'll I'll be right

33:24

back. Part

33:26

of you hopes that someone else someone

33:29

like you will find it and treasure

33:31

it at least for a little while, all

33:39

right, And then you

33:42

run to catch up with your Spanish speaking friend

33:45

who was already half a block away, prattling

33:48

gleefully about something you barely understand,

33:53

and that more than likely neither

33:55

of you will remember.

33:57

You want to grab a beer? Yeah?

33:59

You know a place around here?

34:01

Yeah? I think there's a place on the corner.

34:03

Is it that place that you told me that only takes bitcoins?

34:05

Of lying about that day, I asked

34:07

you. Now

34:46

that the fernures

34:49

returned into it's.

34:50

Goodwill hall, now

34:55

that the last month's rent

34:58

is skiming with.

34:59

The damage to pozzle, take

35:02

this moment to.

35:03

Do so.

35:06

If we imagine flee to.

35:10

Or felt from

35:15

the Thames at as Lee.

35:22

Heavyweight is hosted and produced by me Jonathan

35:24

Goldstein along with Khalila Holt. The

35:26

senior producer is Caitlin Roberts, editing

35:29

by Jorge just and Alex Bloomberg. Special

35:31

thanks to Emily Condon, Meg Driscoll,

35:34

Kelly Coonan, Nicole Wong, Jonathan

35:36

Zanti, Alvin Melth, Chris Neary

35:38

and Silk from the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston

35:41

and Jackie Cohen. The show is mixed

35:43

by Kate Bolinski, music by Christine Fellows

35:45

and John K. Samson. Additional music credits

35:47

for this episode can be found on our website

35:49

Gimbletmedia dot com slash Heavyweight.

35:52

Our theme song is by The Weaker Thands courtesy

35:54

of Epitaph Records, and our ad music

35:56

is by Hailey Shaw. Follow us on Twitter

35:59

at Heavyweight or email us at Heavyweight

36:01

at gimblimedia dot com. Join

36:03

us next week for the last episode of

36:05

the season, Walls

36:11

and.

36:11

We Repainted in

36:19

an empty room, sign

36:23

in an empty room, in

36:28

an empty ro How

36:32

about this. Everybody clap

36:35

your hands.

36:44

And people know when to stop.

36:46

Well, there's no stopping really,