“Today is my birthday,” wrote Jo Anne, from Spring Creek Nevada, “I shall celebrate it by sending a missive to you. I do enjoy your blog and thank you for sharing your life with us.” Jo Anne is living with her mother and caring for her, her mother is 90 years old. “We count our pennies and do just fine. I keep an eye out for our 90 year old friend who lives down the road. We enjoy country life and hiking in the Ruby Mountains, which are nearby. This is Cowboy Country.”
Most of the people who write me are working hard to keep up, also counting their pennies. Their messages are neatly folded, and various denominations of cash slips out of their letters – $5, $20, $60 in sometimes new, sometimes old and folded bills. I don’t need to take money out of the bank for my trip to Tulsa this weekend, I have enough cash in my pocket.
These letters are precious to me, they are also not necessary. I did not open the Post Office Box looking for money. Many people who write me do not have the money to subscribe to the blog, they feel bound to try and contribute. I hope that people who can’t afford it don’t feel obligated to send money – the blog will remain free to you.
These are very meaningful messages of support, but not all of them contain money and those are just as welcome. Many of the letter writers are also online, but they form a secret society of people who love letters, love the feel of paper, love the sense of thought and intimacy between the sender and the reader. They use Facebook but also understood it is not the same as sending a letter, an act of civility and affirmation. I love that intimacy also. If they feel as if they are sitting at their kitchen tables sharing my life, I feel the same way about them, I imagine them with a cup of coffee sitting across from me, something I love to think about. We are having our quiet chats.
I see I may not be able to answer all of these letters promptly, there are lots more than I expected.
The post office called me this morning to tell me my Post Office Box Number 2 (P.O.Box 2, Cambridge, N.Y., 12816) was overflowing, could I please come and pick up my letters, and I was once again astounded to see letters from all over America – Nevada, South Dakota, California, Hawaii, Ohio, Oregon, Michigan, New York, Colorado, New Jersey, Maine, Alabama. My Post Office Box was stuffed with letters. My eyes are opening once more to the reach of the blog and people’s commitment to it, and to my life with Maria. I might need a bigger Post Office Box.
I am seeing these letters differently each time I read them. I have opened a window into the Invisible America, the good and generous America, the gracious and loving America, the one that doesn’t ever seem to get to Washington or appear on cable news shows or get asked to negotiate the issues of our time. People like this do not really exist if you watch the other media, you would never find their letters and gentle and beautiful messages on what they call the “news.”
They have been left behind by a lazy and greedy corporate media and political system that dehumanizes us all, that focuses on what divides us, not what we share. What a shame, we would all be feeling better so much better about our country, the letters reflect it’s true spirit. I love the many letters from farmers and their wives, we have a connection. We share a lot. Everybody e-mails, but the nicest people write letters. So we are part of a community, now, an invisible world whose hearts continue to beat.
Most of the writers are men and woman who get up in the morning, have a cup of coffee, take care of their farm animals, walk their dogs, get ready for work on farms, in suburbs, in cities. Some read the blog every night. They follow it closely, know about Minnie, know my rantings about unwanted advice. “Please don’t disconnect me from the blog,” wrote Carol from Minnesota, “but I hope you let Minnie go out and be a barn cat again.” Don’t worry about it, Carol, I’m not that grumpy.
Most of the writers seem to have assumed I would not want or read letters, only e-mail and text messages. They were happy to find out otherwise, and so many have responded. The letters are beautiful, written by hand mostly, some on typewriters, others on note cards. Some of the penmanship is a lost art in itself. I am getting stories from the real and unheralded heroes in our world – the people who live their loves lovingly and quietly and celebrate their values. Across a vast divide of space and time, they faithfully follow the story of a man and a woman and their farm and donkeys and dogs and chickens and cats.
Minnie got a lot of cards over the weekend, and a few toys people begged me to accept. I will.
One of the messages was a postcard from Custer State Park, postmarked South Dakota. “A librarian from Minnesota has just alerted me to your writing,” wrote Linda, “I love your blog and your P.O. Box Office columns, I’ve insisted on my PO Box for years, “more to come.” I hope so.
Devayani wrote me from Honaunau, Hawaitt, she left the San Francisco Bay Area when it got too crowded and intense, she reads the blog daily. “I admire your integrity and your poems always make me smile. I like the flower photos best because there’s always a sense of miracles in the light. My own dog died last year so I appreciate the vicarious connection with your animals.”
This week, the messages have special meaning for me, they reveal to me the true spirit of this quite wonderful country, they give me so much hope and comfort. They are a counterpoint to the anger and coldness coming from our capital. They remind me what it means to be a human being. They tell humble stories of work and life and family. For me, this is the real America, these are the quiet and forgotten heroes, somehow we have constructed a system where our truest representatives never make it to Washington or want to go. I am meeting them every day and each letter is an impulsion of love and connection in a disconnected world. I thank you all for writing me. P.O. Box 2, Cambridge, N.Y., 12816.