I love mail. I love getting it but above all I love
sending mail. Mail is magical. That a letter can travel around the world in a
week and a bit, or across a country in a few days is phenomenal. When I was
growing up, mail was extra special. We had a red milk churn for a mailbox. It
was so fabulous. I remember dad welding it together, painting it, making the
sign with our property name on it & fixing it to the tree. It became a
direction poster. "We're the red milk churn mail box, if you hit the Big
Egg you've gone too far." Mail only came 4 days a week. We had a larikan
for a postie who'd write messages on our mail "Looks like a good one
Hoges" & do burn outs at the top of our driveway. The mailbox was
half a km from the house so in the summer my sister & I would grab our
bikes & cycle up to check if it'd come. If there was a package we got to
make a special trip to the village post office to collect it off Jackie &
maybe even score a Peppermint Pattie if we were good.
When I went to college, email was still in it's
infancy. Our little mail pigeonholes by the dining room were a source of
constant delight for me. Mailing mixed tapes to my beloved friend Cath in
Toowoomba & receiving them in return was consistently the highlight of my
month. Sending letters to friends about boys, challenges of living in Sydney
& how sophisticated I imagined myself to be were my lifeblood. Letters to
my grandmas helped me stave off homesickness.
Now as an adult, going out to the mailbox to
check it with Lachie is a daily ritual. The absolute joy on his face when a
letter arrives for him is priceless. The excitement he gets from
"helping" me write, address, stamp & put letters in the mailbox
is infectious. He's experiencing literacy & learning about distance. The
picture letters my dad sends him are the closest thing to perfection I will
experience. His re-reading of the card to me, without compare.
I hope when you get a birthday card from me you know I
was thinking about you on your special day. But not just on your day, before it
too. You are important to me. I think about you often.
I remember my mum's address book with her friend's
children's birthdays all listed. I'm pretty sure I'm the only person I know
with a "birthday book." I understand that honoring your friend's
children's birthdays seems to be a dying tradition (it's okay, I know as you're
reading this you have no idea when my kids birthdays are, don't worry, you're
not alone) but just thinking about Lachie's face when he gets mail keeps me
sending them to hope that same joy is felt somewhere else.
I love text messaging, email & Facebook but I
always just imagined there was something special about a card. I always think
of my grandma (who I assume I inherited my love of cards from) who unfailingly
goes to a store, chooses a card especially for me/Lach/Dunc, writes on it,
addresses it, lines up at the post office, buys a stamp & takes it to a
postbox with enough time to get to us before our birthday. She thought about us
for weeks to get that card here. Facebook didn't tell her it was my/their
birthday, she knew. It makes it so much more special.
However, as time goes by I have begun to realize that
the love & thought I had been trying to infuse in my cards wasn't being
transferred. I'll always remember the time I sent a friend an anniversary card.
It was their first anniversary in their first home, it seemed a special one to
celebrate. When I asked if she'd received it she said "Oh yes, I haven't
seen it though yet. My husband just put it in a pile with all the other
anniversary cards we got" At that moment I realized that what I thought
was a special message & a reflection of how much I cared for them was not
that at all.
People just don't share my love of cards & mail.
I'm sure when my cards arrive they're opened, read & probably promptly put
in the recycling. Hopefully they at least bring a little smile to someone's
face during those short minutes. That makes it worthwhile right?
Over time my love of cards has started to hurt me. I
have issues, clearly, but if I'm being honest, it has started to hurt that no
one remembers my boys’ birthdays. That I send Christmas cards to the same
people every year & never get one in return. It hurts when people inform me
"oh I'm just too busy for cards" as if to say I don’t work as hard as
them or I mustn't be as important if I have time to send them.
I don't wish to sound ungrateful, I have a couple of
beautiful friends who never cease to remember us & send gorgeous words
& thoughts, they never cease to bring a warn fuzzy glow to my heart. They
know who they are, and the effort they go to to deal with international postage
makes me love and appreciate them even more than I already do.
I love, love sending cards, but I think it's time to
wean myself from the addiction. Even the US Postal service has had to cut
Saturday service, so it seems both it & I have received the same message.
It'll take me a while, I'm not going to lie. The thought of a little person
getting as much joy as Lachie & Dunc do from ripping open an envelope will
probably keep me sending them to little people for some time. I'd write
something like "please don't be upset if you stop getting cards from me, I
still love you" but that's the whole point of this blog right? Ironically
I'm sure the only person who will notice or be upset will be me :)
