Viva Snail Mail!

This was a good week for mail. I got 2 wedding invitations, a postcard from Biskit, a letter from HT, a thank you note, and a package. Plus 2 mail related projects came my way. The first was from my friend Randi Cecchine, who is sending back the mail she has received from people over the years. She is calling it “The Letter Project” and boy was it fun to open an envelope and find postcards that I had written to her in 1992. Look for an interview with Randi soon.

The second was a request from my sister Allison to her family elders to write letters to ourselves at her age and mail them to her. She was inspired by a story on the radio called What would you say to your 20 year old self? So I sat down and wrote to myself at age 26 and then sent the letter off to Allison. Hopefully she can cull some wisdom from it and if not, at least she’ll get some mail. I loved the process of writing the letter, decorating the envelope and dropping it in a blue mailbox. It felt like art therapy and I recommend it.  In fact I think I may ask my elders to write letters to their 40 year old selves, as I approach that milestone this year. Receiving some perspective might soften the blow of becoming a muthahflipping 40 year old!

And if not, at least I’ll get some mail.

This one goes out to Dari of Papi’s Mami and her bad ass, roller derby self.

Beautiful, hand printed cards from Tall Cow.com. Check them out.

“The reality that folks need to come to grips with is there simply is not enough mail in the system any longer for us to sustain a six-day network,” said Sam Pulcrano, vice president for sustainability at the post office.

As a cost saving measure, the USPS is hoping to end Saturday mail delivery. But the plan has its critics. Read the full article in the New York Times.

Photos by Remy Steiner

So my dad dug this letter up from his daughter archive. I have absolutely no memory of the situation that compelled me to send an illicit letter on my Catholic junior high school’s stationary. But I love it! I guess I had some Dadaist tendencies, even at the age of 13. It reads, “HI DAD! This is wrong. I shouldn’t be doing this. See you soon. Melissa.”

I do remember there being some good postal pranks documented in the RE/Search book, Pranks. If you have sent or received any postal pranks, do tell.

Oy vey. I haven’t posted in quite some time. And that Mother’s Day card that I said I was going to mail to my mom? Its still sitting in an envelope on my desk, addressed but not sent because its big and requires a trip to the post office. My new gig as a mother of 2 has made both a trip to the post office and writing a blog entry seem insurmountable. But I LOVE sending mail and posting here. It ain’t easy to find the time but I’ve got to make it happen, even when I am mostly always a tired mess. So I am re-committing, taking baby steps. I hope you’ll join me. Viva Snail Mail!

To kick off the inspiration, here are some photos by the lovely and talented iphone flaneur, Remy Steiner.

Its the last day of April. Have you sent out a letter or card? Or a poem about spring or taxes? If you have, I adore you. And if not, well, you’re in luck! It turns out that National Card and Letter Writing Month extends to Mother’s Day so its actually National Card and Letter Writing Month and nine days. Here’s the card I found for my mother. Mom, if you’re reading, sorry for the spoiler. Oh look. Its actually an Easter card. Perfect.

I got this beautiful postcard with a tax day poem written on the back. Thanks Corita for taking the VSM challenge and sending some mail to ME! If you’ve sent mail this month, then write a comment and tell us all about it.

April is National Letter Writing Month. Its also National Poetry Month. Its also the month that tax returns are due to the Internal Revenue Service. And its the month that Spring is full on here in Brooklyn. Thank you perky daffodils, tulips, and Callery Pear tree blossoms. You have arrived just in the nick of time.

I don’t know who makes up these dedicated months and I wish letter writing and poetry didn’t need their own month to remain relevant. But enough grumpiness. My Viva Snail Mail challenge to you is to write a letter to someone and include a poem about spring or taxes or both. You can find poems about spring at poetry.org, an excellent website from the Academy of American Poets. Thank you to Tina Cane for that bit of information. Her poem, Butterfly Catcher, is included in the list. My google search for poems about taxes brought up a few rants so you’re on your own to find one or write one on that subject.

And here’s a little perspective to hopefully serve as a motivator. If paper and pen and envelope and stamp feel like work compared to email, here is a letter written and carved by an Ancient Egyptian on a clay tablet.

40 years ago today my dad wrote this letter to his dad from the island of Crete, where he and my mom were living for a few months while traveling around Europe in their VW bus. He found it amidst my Grandpa’s stamp collection, ostensibly saved there due to its interesting Greek aerogramme postage. Reading this letter was like being given a glimpse into my own history. You see my parents had decided to make me on Crete so I was a tiny fetus snug in my mom’s womb on March 29, 1970. My dad’s descriptions of Crete in Spring as a paradise of wildflowers, friendly people, and fresh oranges made me cry, mostly out of appreciation that I could read what this era of family lore was like for him at the time.

I also began to think, once again, about how much memory and history will be lost in this generation of digital transition. When my husband and I traveled in Europe for several months in 2003 my dad the graphic designer diligently saved and typeset all my emails to him. He gave them to me as a booklet when we returned to the States. How sweet to have those emails, those travel records, but who else does that?  I have followed my friends travels via email and Facebook but haven’t gotten a postcard or letter from anyone overseas in ages. We are losing out here and so are our kids and grandkids and those historians who will want to use our correspondence as primary sources.

Traveling heightens the senses and inspires me to write and share what I am experiencing. Travel writing, both in letters and diaries, is its own colorful tradition and genre. I hope that we can find a way to save these words, whether they are written on paper or pixels.