Send Me, Mail Me (Any Way You Want Me)

When I was a kid, a misbehaving kid, my mother would threaten to put a postage stamp on my rear end and drop me in the mailbox.

Trust me, that would have been light punishment considering the grief I caused her. (Come to think of it, the fact of a stamp affixed to my hindquarters underlines the fact that she was serious about dispatching me--without the postage, this wiggly parcel would surely have been returned straightaway to the sender!)

Thus began my early relationship with the mails. I wondered what it would be like to be dropped into that dark box, be bounced around amongst the letters and postcards and parcels. I kind of sort of knew that the scenario was implausible, but on the other hand, was it? Really?

Fast forward all these years, and I still have a passion for the sending and receiving of things. Surprise things. Postcards are a particular joy, a small rectangle of delight that has the ability to transport the receiver to an entirely different place. A perfect melding of image and language, all in a compact, tidy bite.

Last week's postcard-a-day blog adventure got me thinking about postcards in an entirely different way. Or, more accurately, in a deeper way. Seen from the side, a postcard is just a line, a thin wall dividing front from back, image from word. The blank side itself is often divided—half for the sender, half for the sendee. Two relationships evolve with the creation of a card—the writer to the writing of it, the recipient to what's been written there. The card is the intermediary.

I'm an eavesdropper. I love to listen in to conversations, to build whole narratives from the snippets I can grab. I love walking down a street at night, glimpsing other lives framed by uncurtained windows. I love old letters, notes in margins, fragments of handwriting found in the street. And I find a particular thrill in reading a postcard, parsing its inherent duality. What is it the writer intended to say? What is it the receiver insists on finding there?

We say so much, but so much of what we mean is in the words that go unsaid. We tiptoe through language—the very currency of communication--dodging, obfuscating. How effective are we, really, at fogging over our truest thoughts?

My mother's plainspoken postage-stamp threat was clear.

To her I send this postcard--Wish You Were Here.

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