Tag: letter

An Empty Mailbox

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Dear Daughter,
Your father and I wish to commend you
on the wisdom of your choices
and the flawless conduct of your life

Dear Poet!
Where is the full-length manuscript
you promised us? Your check is waiting
The presses are ready
and the bookstores are clamoring for delivery

Dear Patient:
The results of your blood tests reveal
that your problem stems from
a diet dangerously low
in pizza and chocolate

Dear Mom,
You were right about everything
and I was an idiot not to listen
~Rhina Espaillat from “Undelivered Mail”

I never thought we’d end up
Living this far north, love.
Cold blue heaven over our heads,
Quarter moon like chalk on a slate.

This week it’s the art of subtraction
And further erasure that we study.
O the many blanks to ponder
Before the night overtakes us once more
On this lonely stretch of road
Unplowed since this morning;
Mittens raised against the sudden
Blinding gust of wind and snow,
But the mailbox empty. I had to stick
My bare hand all the way in
To make sure this is where we live.

The wonder of it! We retraced our steps
Homeward lit by the same fuel
As the snow glinting in the gloom
Of the early nightfall.
~ Charles Simic “Rural Delivery” from Selected Poems: 1963-1983

In snowy winter weather, our mailbox ends up in the middle of a huge drift from the blowing northeast wind. The box sits at the peak of the highest hill on our rural road, so the mail carrier can have a clear view of who is coming and going when they stop to put our mail inside.

The blowing snow also stops right here on our hill; no mail can be delivered. So, either my husband digs out the access to the mailbox or we choose to wait for the melt and thaw, and allow our mailbox to languish unopened for as long as it takes.

An empty mailbox is a lonely thing.

Junk mail isn’t the answer any more than junk food nourishes the body. These days, personal letters in the mailbox are few and far between. And even rarer are those heart-felt letters which are hand-written, lovingly stamped to be gratefully read and treasured.

When you write such letters to me, I delight as they fill my heart and my lonely mailbox – especially so on a dark, chilly winter night…

AI image created for this post

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Here’s My Hand

barnstormingblog1 Comment

How far friends are! They forget you,
most days. They have to, I know; but still,
it’s lonely just being far and a friend.
I put my hand out—this chair, this table—
So near: touch, that’s how to live.
Call up a friend? All right, but the phone
itself is what loves you, warm on your ear,
on your hand. Or, you lift a pen
to write—it’s not that far person
but this familiar pen that comforts.
Near things: Friend, here’s my hand.
~William Stafford “Friends” from The Way It Is

I initially started writing online almost twenty years ago to a group of friends, most that I had met in real life, but some of whom I only knew from afar. It felt like I was writing a letter but without the pen, paper, envelopes and stamp.

Now I write to over 22,000 people every day. A few of you I know well, some I’ve only met once, most of you I will never have the privilege to know personally. Some of you have written to me privately (some with pen and paper, stamp and envelope!) to tell me more about your lives and how the thoughts I send along each day make a difference to you.

I know the power and love found in a hand-written letter. Someone I have known for nearly 50 years still writes to her friends – Jane Goodall was my teacher and mentor. When she gave me the opportunity to work with her in Africa in the 1970s, it changed my life in ways I still am discovering. Most remarkably, she has written to me on a number of occasions and I treasure those notes. Her familiar pen written by her familiar hand comforts me.

It’s lonely being far away, and a friend. But here is my hand. I hope you will continue to take what I offer here and find it comforting.

giving Jane a hug, courtesy of WWU Communications

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Waiting for News of Spring

barnstormingblog4 Comments

It’s a motley lot. A few still stand
at attention like sentries at the ends
of their driveways, but more lean
askance as if they’d just received a blow
to the head, and in fact they’ve received
many, all winter, from jets of wet snow
shooting off the curved, tapered blade
of the plow. Some look wobbly, cocked
at oddball angles or slumping forlornly
on precariously listing posts. One box
bows steeply forward, as if in disgrace, its door
lolling sideways, unhinged. Others are dented,
battered, streaked with rust, bandaged in duct tape,
crisscrossed with clothesline or bungee cords.
A few lie abashed in remnants of the very snow
that knocked them from their perches.
Another is wedged in the crook of a tree
like a birdhouse, its post shattered nearby.
I almost feel sorry for them, worn out
by the long winter, off-kilter, not knowing
what hit them, trying to hold themselves
together, as they wait for news from spring.
~Jeffrey Harrison “Mailboxes in Late Winter”

This time of year I too often feel like an off-kilter mailbox – rusty, dented, leaning rather than upright, covered with mildew and lichens — it will take some effort to look presentable after a long winter.

There isn’t much that would recommend me as a potential destination; most of the mail that is delivered to me is junk mail or bills. It is a rare pleasure to find a hand-addressed card or note. I have myself to thank for that: I rarely send one to anyone else. I’m not even sure I could find a stamp at home if I wanted one.

It reminds me how infrequently I actually hand write any form of communication any more, how dependent I’ve become on the instantaneous nature of texting and email, and how much I used to enjoy writing letters back and forth to family and friends, in what feels like another life.

Letters can be forever–a tangible representation of the writer illustrated by their choice of envelope, stamp and paper, writing utensil, style of script, sometimes a scent. The neatness or hurried nature of the writing says something about the urgency with which it was written. Emails have none of those features, and can feel ephemeral, although we know they can always be found and retrieved, for good and for ill, by those who know how to look for them.

It has been too long. It’s time to commit to writing a letter a week to someone who needs to be able to tangibly feel my caring about them, right in their hands.

Then just maybe, I can share news of the spring to come.