It is something to imagine all those people, making their postcards, laboring over the words, staring at them once they're down on paper.
Just think about it. Something that you have carried with you for a long time, maybe years, maybe most of your life. It is something you think you just can't share. Either it seems horrible, or you think it makes you a bad person, or, like the one person said, no one believes you.
To be able to write it out, and see it on paper, probably cry over it a little, to put a stamp on it, and then to send it out -- dropping it into a public mailbox, knowing it will be read -- suddenly, you exist. Your secret exists. You have taken it out of you and sent it out in the world, which means you don't have to bear it by yourself any longer.
I read about a book once that someone did by collecting people's used to-do lists. What she found interesting about them was that they were almost always a combination of over-arching spiritual matters -- "Live for today" -- and mundane matters -- "Pick up the dry cleaning."
Here's the book: http://www.amazon.com/Do-List-Buying-Finding-Reveal/dp/1416534695/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1230253907&sr=8-1
Comment Reply
It is something to imagine all those people, making their postcards, laboring over the words, staring at them once they're down on paper.
Just think about it. Something that you have carried with you for a long time, maybe years, maybe most of your life. It is something you think you just can't share. Either it seems horrible, or you think it makes you a bad person, or, like the one person said, no one believes you.
To be able to write it out, and see it on paper, probably cry over it a little, to put a stamp on it, and then to send it out -- dropping it into a public mailbox, knowing it will be read -- suddenly, you exist. Your secret exists. You have taken it out of you and sent it out in the world, which means you don't have to bear it by yourself any longer.
I read about a book once that someone did by collecting people's used to-do lists. What she found interesting about them was that they were almost always a combination of over-arching spiritual matters -- "Live for today" -- and mundane matters -- "Pick up the dry cleaning."
Here's the book: http://www.amazon.com/Do-List-Buying-Finding-Reveal/dp/1416534695/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1230253907&sr=8-1
December 25, 2008 - 6:13pmThis Comment
Reply