Work Text:
Spring, 1438 S.R.
Dear Sam,
I've no way to send this letter back to Middle-earth. But perhaps someday, many years hence, you yourself will journey to the Undying Lands and I will give it to you then. Then, we'll laugh, no doubt, over these silly things I'm writing. Or perhaps there will be another way to get it to you; who can say?
It's quite impossible to describe this land, so I shan't try. Suffice it to say, it's everything we've been led to believe. And yet, if I had the chance today, I'd return to Middle-earth. Please don't think I'm unhappy here or made a mistake in coming. I needed the peace of these Elvish lands, less touched by the marring of Arda, as they call it, to cut out cast light on the Shadow that lingered in me, as the morning dispels the night shade. Indeed, it's a measure of how much I feel that shadow dispelled that my heart turns again to Middle-earth, to the lands and kin and friends I left behind. I feel something of Bilbo's old courage--some Tookishness perhaps--urging me out into those wilder lands that live crisp as new autumn under the chill of death. One tends to dream here. Sometimes I sense I'm awake among sleepers. I'd like to wake again.
The Elves are great healers as we well know. I have had more kindness from them than I can begin to tell. Yet if there was a single event that restored me helped me move onward, it was a talk I had with Bilbo. It was wonderful to see this land lighten his years, sharpen his wits. As for me, I expected somehow to arrive on these shores with my burdens blown away like storm clouds. And it seemed that way, at first. Yet as the first years glided past, I began to learn that our burdens live within us. It takes more than a fine, green countryside or even a gentle healing hand to lighten weights we ourselves cling to.
It was about ten years ago. I was sitting one day in that fine, green grass with Bilbo, looking out over a warm, summer sea. I was talking of something I'd said to one of the Elves. I've no recollection what it was, but I was worried I'd said the wrong thing, brushed off one their tales with too light a jest maybe.
And suddenly, Bilbo said to me, "Your problem, Frodo, my lad, is that you still live your life as if the doom of the world lay in your hands. Oh, in your head, you know it doesn't, but in your heart, you scour your every word and deed--and thought, I daresay--as if the slightest misstep would plunge all lands into darkness. I can't blame you for getting into that habit. Once, I've no doubt, it was necessary. But the war is over, and the fact of the matter is you're just a little fellow again with no great effect on anything. You must stop living as if you were still a Ringbearer. It's a task none of us is quite equal to, but happily, it's a task none of us will ever be asked to perform again. So there."
That little talking to altered my life--not all at once. But season by season, I found myself... more comfortable, I suppose. More complacent? It's a little like... well, like sitting beside the fire, as Bilbo would say. I'm not always sure it's a good thing. Yet that uncertainty itself may prove the truth of Bilbo's words to me. For if, in this land of rest, in this peaceful age, I live as if I expect to have to forge my way in Mordor again at a moment's notice, what does that say about me? It's hardly natural, is it? So perhaps I have forgotten some of that strength of will we called on to see us through those days. But the forgetting opens the door to peace within oneself; it's a kind of... balance, for want of a better word.
Bilbo died last year. His decline was gentle, yet somehow, I expected it gentler in these lands. First, his mind slipped, as it had in those last days in Rivendell. Then, he took to his bed. The very end was difficult; you know what it is to sit at a deathbed. I suppose I had thought he'd simply pass away in his sleep. But how should I have expected death to come in the Undying Lands? This place wasn't crafted for our folk. It keeps us as best it can. But since he's been gone, the hold of this land on me has slackened. I miss the speech of my own people, for even talking to Gandalf is not quite the same as a good evening in the company of hobbits.
But here, I've spent this whole letter discussing myself and not asked after you at all. I've no doubt your life is full and happily busy. In truth, I try not to think about it much, to think about you or Merry or Pippin or all that great world beyond these shores. To do so makes me feel passed by a little passed by, as if I've slipped back into dreaming. And when you come here, if you come, I will hear all your tales then, if I'm still living. Or perhaps, someday, if there is a way, if there's a ship, I'll see you ere then. For now, my love to you and Rose and Elanor and all of yours, and Merry and Pippin too.
I am still with you, and you with me. Those ties, no distance nor even the magic veils of the Valar can sever. I will see you again, in this world or after. Till then, I remain,
Ever your friend,
Frodo