The Mail
Mail is for birthdays and bills. My grandparents send me a birthday card with a check for $35 every year. My dad, now in his mid-sixties, gets a card with a check for the same amount. Or mail just seems to deliver bad news. Like the $4,000 bill I received for sitting in the emergency room for 8 hours repeating the same story of my ailments to multiple nurses, doctors, attendees, and whoever else came in to check on me. Then only to be sent home with a prescription and well wishes. Now I can just pay that monthly bill online, even though I still get a paper copy delivered to me, in case I forget. Or like the letter of rejection I got for a conditional offer of employment with a three letter government agency that deals in safeguarding our nation’s secrets while advancing off those of the rest of the world. I had spent over a year in tests and interviews just to get a COE and the better part of 6 months trying to get cleared for work. I had recently gone through medical, psychological, and polygraph tests when I received the letter. It simply read, “We regret to inform you that you are no longer eligible for this position.” I was devastated.
What happened to plain old correspondence? When a conversation happened over months instead of minutes. I’m somewhat convinced that only ever happens in movies or novels. Mail is for delivering information and news, not conversation. I have texting for that, my parents had telephones, their parents had telephones, and I guess their parents had mail. Maybe that’s what people mean when they speak of the “sacred public institution” that is the United States Postal Service. They’re really just referring to another time, mail invokes nostalgia. I can’t picture many people feeling a sense of sacred comfort when they open their mailbox every day for mostly junk. But I guess there is comfort in the certainty of mail. It operates the same as it always has despite extenuating circumstances or volatile environments. I have to admit that mail can give you a sense of connection with something tangible, even a feeling of touch, when you receive something from someone far away. My godmother sent me a handmaid cloth facemask. It’s blue with white stars outlined in red and her note read that I would look like Captain America with it on. I like to think of Captain America as our country’s patron mailman, dedicated to delivering justice and peace no matter what. Now there’s some nostalgia for you.
I have a leaflet of stamps in my desk drawer. Marvin Gaye Forever USA. That’s not a common thing for a millennial to have I suppose. I’ve had them for about 6 months and used one stamp so far to pay a bill that couldn’t be done online. They’re supposed to be for the New Yorker postcards I received in the mail, to send to my friends and family. I’m not sure where they are now. The postcards I mean. My old high school friend and her husband in California, my sweet ever-loving grandparents in Virginia and Pittsburgh, my turtle wrangling buddy in the Virgin Islands. Then again I could just call them. It’s not that I don’t want to, it’s just my good intentions are always beset by thoughtful inaction. My anxious, loath mind slow to move. Like snail mail.
