Today, September 20, 2012

Today’s project: Correspondence Club

Pic: essay.tv

I’m a bit of a voracious, spastic reader.  Although I have a variety books that I’m reading at once, it may take me several weeks to finish a single one.  (I'm sure my husband wishes that Riddlin would fix this, as he's tired of renewing, over and over, my choices at the library) For quite some time, I've been into biographies (although I occasionally distract myself with a good romance novel. Thank you Jane Austen!).  And one biography often leads me to another.  For example, in reading a fascinating treatise on Mary Pickford, I sought out a chronicle of the life of Clara Bow, who was often mentioned in the piece on Ms. Pickford, as they were both completely different products of the same time.  It was super fascinating to compare and contrast the two women who were iconic and epitomized the era they occupied.

In the same vein, I’m currently buried into two utterly entrancing pieces:

One on Alice Roosevelt, the daughter of Teddy Roosevelt.

This glorious woman was fascinating to me; the original Paris Hilton committing such magnificent ‘offences’ when young and rash as driving a car by herself, smoking, and leaving a party early.  Shocking! =)  I knew I would adore this book when in the first two pages the author describes this lady as one who “ignored the Junior League and women’s clubs.  She had no need of them: leaders of the free world came to her dinner table.”  I was struck by the fact that she felt no need to chase society; she sat back and watched it come to her. Brilliant!  I thought, ‘I want to be her when I grow up.’

Alice Roosevelt Longworth, as an adult, became incredibly politically savvy. She often knew more about bills and treaties than the legislators did themselves and they readily sought her opinion on which way they should vote and why.  I have to admit that her prowess as a political maven was daunting since I really have no interest in delving into current issues and candidates.  Yes, dear reader, I am one of the uneducated masses!

The second is on Emily Post, that grandmother of proper table settings and wedding invitation wording

Mrs. Post has been quite the enigmatic character to study.  Known to me only as the lady who wrote The book on politeness, I was fascinated to learn that she was a divorced, single mom who wrote romance novels first, in order to support herself and her two young boys. You GO girl!  Quite the modern woman, in a world where it was the height of shocking to attend a party where a divorced woman might be invited. And now her advice is considered the hieght of old-fashioned. Pity.

This woman laid the ground work for Martha Stewart and her multi-million dollar corporation that tells us what our dinners, parties, and holidays should look like. Mrs. Emily Post sold tens of thousands of copies of “Etiquette in Society, in Business, In Politics and at Home, “ which is STILL being sold and is currently in it’s 18^th edition!  It contains beautiful nuggets of wisdom like:

“There is no reason why you should be bored when you can be otherwise”

and:

“The phrases that a man might devise to close a letter to his betrothed or his wife are bound only by the limit of his imagination and do not belong in this, or any, book” (no naughty bits here!) =)

and also:

“Manners are made up of trivialities of deportment which can be easily learned if one does not happen to know them; manner is personality—the outward manifestation of one’s innate character and attitude toward life”

As I am captivated by these intense spotlights onto people’s lives, something has assuredly struck me.  A lot of the ‘evidence’ used by these authors to give us an appropriate vision of who we are reading is found in their letters; that were either written by or received by them.  At a given time period, these bits of thoughts seem to be portholes into the minds of those we find so captivating.

We don’t do that any more.  Written correspondence, the kind where you commune with an actual pen in your hand and not your keyboard, appears to be a lost art.  In the future, when biographers go to look for evidence of their subject’s state of mind or views on a particular issue, will they quote emails? Or blog posts? Or Facebook status updates? Or Tweets, for goodness sake?  Seriously?  I don’t want someone to look at the whole of my FB status’ as a picture of who I truly am.  Are those my true, inner thoughts and feelings? Of course not!  Generally, I use those bits of time and vocalization as either a vent of spleen or a call to the ethos.  I play a little game to see if I can get anyone to comment, and when they do, I secretly do a small jig.  Yay! People like me!

And then I thought, “Why don’t we write letters anymore?”  I LOVE receiving cards and notes in the mail. Those little bits of fancy paper that say to me someone took a bit of extra time out of their day to think of me; then to write their thoughts down and send them to me so I would get a smile in my mailbox.  It genuinely makes my day. 

So I started a mini social experiment.  I posted on Facebook my intention to start a ‘correspondence club’.  To anyone who was interested, I would periodically send a card or note.  All they had to do was message me their address. (I asked for it in my messages so that the whole world wouldn’t have access to their address if they didn’t want it – I try to be cognizant of people’s privacy)  That’s it.  I didn’t promise anything but a bit of real, in-your-hand missive to arrive once-in-a-while in their real inbox.

My participants aren’t required to respond, although I, of course, adore when they do.  I have gotten some wonderful pieces of prose that I know I shall cherish for years.  I’m mulling over several different ways to store them so I can enjoy them anytime I want.  Stuffing them in a box seems so irreverent. =)[Warning! Future project alert]

I’m really a simple girl at heart.  The little things make me happy; a sweet card, a beautiful sky, a lovely drive on such a day, thrift store shopping with my besties, snuggling with my kids on the couch as we laugh big-belly-guffaws at a Loony Toons cartoon.  I don’t need things like granite countertops (sorry Mommy) or Gucci bags or leather seats. 

Actually, I abhor leather seats. [Warning: Side note approaching!]

One of the most stupid ideas ever given life, in my mind.  No matter what the weather, my butt sticks to the leather.  I know I will never have heated seats in my car because the requirement is leather coverings.  The pleasure of a warm/cool bottom is greatly diminished when I leave behind a layer of my dermis every time I get up. Not interested. Sorry.  Unless, what stuck to the seats was cellulite.  If that were the case, we’d have leather everything; leather car seats, leather couch, leather toilet seat, leather sheets on the bed.  YEAH!  What a glorious thing it would be to leave behind little bits of cellulite on that horrid sticky fabric.  Yes, ma’am, sign me up!

Anyways, I have about 30 people on my current list.  My original goal was that each person in the club would receive something once a week.  That has been more difficult than I anticipated as I seem to only have the brain power to do about 10 notes in a single session.  And, of course, when I think I can do another batch., I’m distracted by a new project =)

I have a little recipe card box on my desk with colored index cards that serves as an address book.  Each card has the participants name and address on one side and on the other, a compendium of what has been sent to them and when.  I jot down when I send a card or a note or a postcard type of letter.  I would rather not repeat by getting lazy and sending a Hallmark card three times in a row.  I mean, the whole point was that I would actually converse, on paper, with my friends.

It has been quite the exercise. Unfortunately, it feeds my office supply obsession as I am now on the lookout for cheap papers, cards, stickers and colored pens to make my notes a little extra special.  I’ve also tried to include a quote or thought that has been inspirational to me.  As I am not expecting most of my club members to respond to what I send, it kind of reads as a ‘random thought.’ But that adds to the fun for me.

“The letter we all love to receive is one that carries so much of the writer’s personality that she seems to be sitting beside us, looking at us directly and talking just as she really would, could she have come on a magic carpet, instead of sending her proxy in ink-made characters on mere paper”  --Emily Post “Etiquette…etc”

How can you NOT want to pick up a pen and pretty piece of paper and try your hand at correspondence with inspiration such as that?

Tonight, I ensconced myself into the bed surrounded by a pile of papers, cards and envelopes accompanied by a pile of pens and a handful of stamps.  When I get a stack of outgoing missives, I have a big grin on my face as I carry them out to our mailbox.  I hope Emily and Alice are looking down on me with a smile as well….