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July 13, 2008

This is, in fact about blogging. And what a horrible blogger I've been. When I embarked upon this journey to write a letter a day (which I've done now for over a month. Just 10 and change to go --) I thought, "This'll be interesting and fluid and full of discovery and oh, how I'll want to write about it..." Well, though it has proven to illicit many wonderful curiosities of my heart that might never have otherwise surfaced, let's just say my enthusiasm for the project goes in waves.

Before I blather on, let me begin with the honorable mentions:

My dear friend NINA FRENKEL, of ninafrenkel.com fame, was the first to write me back. She waited for whim and fancy and sent it my way. We covered, primarily, questions of 'the name'. ie: Does one live INTO the name they're given or is there some other explanation? We also considered those who rebel somewhat against their name. Like a devlish Angelica or a super-scientific Faith. Of course, for the regular namey names like Erika, for example, that one COULD take - what with the k and all - to be kind of, well, hard. Good thing I'm such a softy on the inside.

KNIGHT BERMAN, of the Marble tea (marbletea.com or myspace.com/marbletea) - also wrote an awesome letter. This is a musing and musical man, folks, a delight of a person to hang out with in person or on paper. He and I have expanded and contracted our circles of thought together numerous times until we're either in the stars or talking molecular structure. (We don't know much about either, as it turns out, but boy can we go with it!)

Even with consistent output on my end, I still fail to receive very many letters back and not even much acknowledgement of the letters I've written. My friend BEN (bencramer.org - not dot com, who is a Dutch pornstar, we discovered...) said he read someone's opinion that it was rude to write letters, as it makes the recipient feel they've got to write back. To this I say GET OVER IT. Is that my problem? Your insistence that you must write back, whether I care or not, makes ME rude? (Not pinning this on Ben, though I've been known in the past to kill the messenger).

Ben sent me back something pretty dang exciting - an inkpad, and stamps of the alphabet, numbers 0 - 9, along with some stamp icons, such as hearts and balls (I'm still not sure what to do with the ball). What an inspirational tool just when I needed something to get excited about! I thanked him for all the letters he sent in response to my two. (Yes, I wrote him twice.)

Which brings me to the next topic (I haven't written about this in all too long so I'm trying to get it all in here....) which is, it's so interesting to realize to whom you want to write on a given day. And the recipient determines the tone and content of the letter. Some people just draw out different parts of you. Sure, we know this - but writing a letter every day makes you REALLY know it.

1 rule of this game - wait until it's totally obvious to whom you should write. It really does get revealed daily.

Rule 2 - you can repeat. It's a whole year, so you've got to go with inspiration in whatever form it arrives.

Rule 3 - you don't have to SEND all your letters. For example, I wrote to my favorite poet, James Tate - and sounded like an 8 year old asking for an autographed picture. Actually, it wasn't even that interesting. I was tired, okay? I didn't send it.

My friend Jenny Sue gets a lot of letters. From me. As a matter of fact, she's my leading lazy fallback. I can tell her anything, show her any mood, so she bears the brunt of my late night 'about to fall asleep and haven't done this yet' throw-away letters. I don't send her all of those, either. But she gets an honorable mention as well just for being her and providing me the downy mattress that she is.

My most major of realizations is that merely taking on a task such as writing a letter a day is really not enough. You can't live your life with no time, chock full - and have this work or be fun in any way. You have to make time to allow for the whimsical nature of letter-writing to take over. So it's not just about getting it done daily - and believe me, I've treated it that way some days. It's really only satisfying on the days when I allow that time, dedicate half an hour to writing my letter, allowing the flexible time in my life that satisfaction from such an act requires. Then it's excitement all over again. Aaaah, letters. May I never write another.

More soon, and thanks for reading.

June 8, 2008

Letters. That’s what this is going to be about now and for the year to come.

I really think letters – handwritten or typed, but sent through the postal service - are a lost art form. This romantic style of communication harkens back to the pre-e-mail period. (There’s the Paleolithic Era, the Pleistocene Era, B.C., A.D., and Pre-E.) Pre-E is not so long ago, folks. That’s when we could write and people understood the emotion.

I recognize some overlap in the periods – between Paleolithic and B.C., Pleistocene and B.C, between A.D. and Pre-E. I forgot to mention the Plasticine Era, in which we are right now. (See Poland Spring, Evian, Brita – for starters). It goes on from there and just ends up in a landfill, but that’s for another day.

Back to letters – this past week I’ve embarked on an exercise, all inspired by letters. The trajectory of how I got here is not quite so interesting, but the process is, and I recommend it. I’m writing one letter a day for an entire year. Granted I’m 5 days into this project. (Just 360 to go!) But here’s what I’ve noted thus far:

Rewards:
My mind keeps MOVING. It’s fun to get the juices flowing daily like that.
You remember how to write. Physically.
You get to use up all those little address stickers that come in the mail. Whoda thunk?
You’re communicating with people you love, and some others*.

Other notables –
I thought I’d spend a truckload on supplies, but I’ve calculated that I’ll spend approximately $152 on stamps for the year. Not bad, if I do say so myself. Paper and envelopes, let’s just say another $50 (I’m into stationary, so I’m upping the price of regular paper here.) Besides, you have to keep it exciting and inspiring if you’re going to do this every day. I think between paper bags I find on airplanes, plain ol’ white printer paper, ripped out notebook paper and nicey-nice paper that I find in overpriced stores that I love, $50 or so should about cover it.

Ways to even out your project costs, should this plague you:
1. Have 76 less store bought coffees this year. Make ‘em at home.
2. Starve yourself for a week. You’ll save some money AND this is bound to make your letters more interesting
3. Write over text on junk mail sent to your home - a.k.a. recycling.
4. Seduce your mail carrier for some ‘free delivery’
5. Try selling your letters. Kick up a table on the street, next to a mailbox - and lay them out with a sign saying ‘Best letters ever. You want one.’ Then explain that each one is unique and amazing. The buyer ‘buys’ one of your letters for the price of a stamp, piece of paper and envelope, (50 cents, maybe?) and you fill out their address in front of them and stamp it, and drop it into the mailbox beside you. People love getting letters, people! This could work.

I have a lot more I can say about this plan, the inception of the letter-writing campaign in my heart, it’s inspiration, how it ties in personally so much right now for me, but I hesitate to shoot the whole wad, so to speak, at once. I plan to blog about this process once a week. I’m still in the pregnant phase, where those to whom I wrote the first ones might just be receiving them about now. I imagine I’ll get some back, but who knows? I hadn’t thought about that so much until recently. You can draw all kinds of statistics from the project. “Most likely to write back were 20-somethings with small dogs’. Or “least likely to acknowledge the communiqué at all were psychics.” The world is wide open.

Join me on the expedition if you want and you can start anytime. When I finish on June 4, 2009, you’ll still be going, which is awesome. It’ll be a round, a reverberation of the personal letter resounding throughout the land.
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* people you don’t love, or entities, such as corporations or businesses, notably airlines.

xoxo Erika