Staying Open

Maybe you don't know what it's like.

I've entered Month 11 of my postal project and it's a comfortable routine now. I have routine correspondence with a few fellow letter-writers, and I send and receive postcards at regular intervals with many more. I've worked through the wishing that everyone would write back, and let it be okay that most don't.

I kind of feel like this is huge. I live in a world of mandatory reciprocation, a very, very transactional world. I give a clerk money, she bags my purchases. You slide your card in, your gas tank gets filled. Even in nature: I water you, you bloom. I feed you, you return to my garden.

It takes effort of a different kind to give without expecting anything back, and maybe that's the underlying point of my project - to teach myself how. It hasn't just been to fill a basket with postcards from all over, or fill a box with letters. There's more to it - a depth I haven't touched yet - beyond the sending of tangible post.

For now, I'm thinking it's this: take the experience of sending mail without expectation and turn it into a lifetime of openly giving. And then to keep giving, to never stop giving, no matter what.

It'll take some practice.

Little Gifts

A few weeks ago, at the Mark Rothko opening in our local art museum, I attended a lecture by the curator of modern and contemporary art from the National Gallery in Washington D.C. Harry Cooper spoke eloquently and freely about Rothko's history and evolution, from a young artist experimenting in different styles to the iconic rectangle guy we know today.

He had a slide show and a lot of facts, and an interesting disdain for a particular early Rothko, "Man with Green Face." He mentioned it more than once in an unflattering way.

When the lecture ended, there was the requisite Q and A, and a bunch of poser types had to show off their knowledge of All Things Art, asking incomprehensible questions loaded with jargon. After five or six of these meandering topics leading nowhere, I raised my hand.

"How come you don't like the 'Man with Green Face?'" I asked. I'm proud to say that Harry Cooper was speechless for a moment. Then he chuckled and said, "Well, I don't know, really. Why do you like him?" I chuckled back and said, "I'm not sure I actually like him. I just wondered why you didn't." I paused, and then continued. "Maybe I do kind of like him. He reminds me of Frankenstein, a little." This got some nervous laughter from the posers, and then Harry said, "Well, there you go. I just don't like Frankenstein."

I only mention this because of a series of little gifts I've received lately. My friend Sherry was also at the lecture, and a few days later we met on Main Street for First Thursday.  She had a gift bag for me. In it: a Frankenstein serving tray and cocktail napkins. Then an article out of the Houston Star arrived in the mail from Lu, about a whole movement in Generation Y toward bringing back the lost art of written correspondence. (Picture me, green as the green-faced man with envy of the 25-year-old who's collected about 1,000 postcards and sent more than 800 in two years.)

Just this week, a small box arrived in the mail from Evette. Inside: 10 notecards and 10 Forever Stamps of 20th Century Poets. (Evette likes to think of me as a poet, has always encouraged me as a writer, and I know she must've seen this gift pack and immediately thought of me.)

Oh! And maybe best of all! Evette included a stamp dispenser. One that reminds me of the old-timey stamp dispenser that used to sit on my Mamaw's cedar-smelling sideboard where she kept all her mail and her address book.

(What the hell has someone like me been doing all this time without a stamp dispenser?)

And how did someone like me get so lucky as to have friends like these?

Circles of Love

A few weeks ago, my friend Bonnie sent a link to something called Circle of Love Letters with the message, "Now this sounds right up your alley!" I thought it was about love letters, so I didn't immediately click the link. Not that I have anything against love letters, I just jumped to a conclusion that a circle of love letters might be - oh, I don't know - the pen-and-paper equivalent of polyamory, maybe? Not that I have anything against polyamory - I just didn't think it was "right up my alley" - not at this stage of my life, anyway.

Of course I had it wrong (the way I always have it wrong when I jump to conclusions).

Circle of Love Letters (or COLL) is about writing - through U.S. Mail! - to people who need support. Volunteers are given the name and address of someone having trouble coping with a difficulty. The recipient will be a stranger about whom the letter-writer will only be given a cursory amount of information. Volunteers commit to writing weekly, and cannot expect a response. 

As I've written before, I've experienced great pleasure when letters and postcards appear in my mailbox. I've also had trouble enduring the frustration of not hearing back. I emailed COLL anyway to volunteer, and the response included guidelines and a summary of the 3-month commitment I would have to make. Then I reached this paragraph:

"Not getting replies to the letters you write can create a challenge, but it also gives an opportunity to focus on what is inspiring to you, to look out for the things that make you feel good. Sending good wishes and love without expectation can be a spiritual practice."

Just a click away, my friend put the very alley of opportunity I needed right on my map.  

Circle of Love Letters

Patience Is Hard

Five months into my postal experiment, I’ve written to 43 people and heard back from 18 through the U.S. mail. I’ve had, as previously reported here, several different emotional responses to the discrepancy, impatience and disappointment prominent among them. I thought today I’d try compassion and understanding.

First, for the mothers of young children. I recently spent the weekend with a dear friend, her 4-year-old, and her 2-year-old. Just two days with these houseguests and my ability to comprehend a vast new corner of the cosmos expanded farther than my reading Stephen Hawkings’ A Brief History of Time or The Universe in a Nutshell. I now wonder how mothers of toddlers have time to sharpen a pencil, let alone write a postcard.

These women are absolutely off the hook.

As to the rest of the nonresponders – well, in the spirit of empathy, I’ll just have to intuit. Maybe they want to, but simply aren’t in the habit. Just like starting a new exercise regimen, it’s hard to work that muscle group in that whole new way.

Or maybe they mean to, but keep forgetting. They forget to buy postcards. They forget to purchase stamps. They tell themselves on the way home from demanding jobs or carefree hikes in the redwoods or piano lessons, “Tonight is the night I’ll write and send that postcard.” Somewhere between the grocery store and the American Idol finale, it slips their minds.

Maybe they paid it forward. I did say that would be fine with me. I wanted to be the person who generously expanded out to everyone, through that whole Six Degrees of Separation phenom, the joy of receiving mail.  That was, in fact, a lie. Fine. Pay it forward. But write to me as well. I’m self-centered that way. Secret’s out.

Or perhaps they don’t think their lives are interesting enough. Possibly their lives have been so exciting and eventful they don’t want to brag. Maybe they just have to get something off their chests, start writing and before they know it, three typewritten, single-spaced pages of venting lay before them. “She won’t want to read all this crap!” They tell themselves and press delete.

Stop! Hit save instead! She doesn’t care if you complain. She wants that letter!

Those who’ve emailed to say they intend to write – cards on the way – letter imminent.  Thanks. I’m trying that patience thing, and it ain’t going so great, but the waiting gives me excellent practice.

As does the entire enterprise.

Beating Back the Lonelies

I read an article recently about how Facebook is making people feel lonely and isolated.

Say what? 

Ironic, isn't it? You there with your 900 or 372 friends? Even if you only have 23, that's still quite a lot. Twenty-three would fill up your house and 372 a rented community center if they all showed up for your birthday party.

Lonely? I totally get it. You sit around in your little office or living room or college dorm all "connected" to your "social network." You read the status updates that go out to all 177 or 1,032 of your friend's friends. You look at the pictures of their recent trips to Rome or Houston or Grandma's Easter Supper. You might even feel that little green monster of envy tickling your cerebral cortex (a miserable irritation if there ever was one).

How often do you get a personal notification more than two lines long from a Facebook friend? How often do you wonder why you only got two "likes" on your recent, wholly original and super clever status update?

You know what doesn't produce a feeling of solitude?

(Wait for it. You know what I'm going to say already, don't you?)

A letter or postcard in the U.S. Mail!

Get on board with this, people! Even if you don't have a limitless social calendar full of parties and date nights and girlfriend getaways. Even if you live in a Quonset hut in the Aleutian Islands where it's pitch black from October to March. You get a piece of written correspondence with a Liberty Bell Forever stamp on it and I guarantee it staunches loneliness in its tracks.

You gotta give to receive.

So get out there and write someone a letter! Do it now!