Precious Time

Lately, far more often than I'd like to admit, I've found myself thinking, "I don't have time to write a letter today," or "I'll write tomorrow" or "Maybe I'll find time this weekend."

It's not that life hasn't indeed been busy. A family member was recently hospitalized. My toddler--despite being on the run and up the walls and down the stairs all day long--never seems to get tired. Expanded responsibilities and new technologies challenge me at my job.

No, it's not that extra time and energy aren't scarce. Rather, it's the conclusions I draw about that reality--that somehow, using some of my precious minutes to write a letter is either too relaxing (shouldn't I be cleaning the refrigerator instead?) or not relaxing enough (why not just unwind with some channel surfing and chardonnay?)

But when I do compose a note, as I did recently to my friend L from college, I am reminded that letter writing offers both discipline and release. Sure, putting pen to paper is a mental exercise requiring a bit more time and physical labor than texting, but, done right, it's a spiritual practice too. I suppose some letters for some people are a blood pressure-raising experience, but I have chosen to devote none of mine to settling scores with adversaries or hashing out bygone dramas with estranged relatives. Instead, my letters to friends and family reminisce on shared good times, recall old jokes and recognize how enriched I am by the blessings my relationships have bestowed. Like I told L:

I am so glad we have kept in touch through our Christmas cards. I look forward every year to your letter--I so enjoy hearing about your travels and your charity work, and I am so inspired by your sense of adventure and optimism.

It's when I'm most busy, my days filled with opportunities and obligations, that I most need a practice that encourages me to slow down, be thankful and think abundantly. While letter writing can seemingly threaten to leave me with less precious time, in the end it helps to make more of my time precious.

Write on.

MUCH MORE THAN COOKIES: More than a dozen women who were Girl Scouts together almost 40 years ago have kept their friendships strong. I am inspired, and a little nostalgic for our my own fond memories of Camp Wood E Lo Hi.

Monday Letter Lore: "A Quarter Century's Worth of Thanks"

If The Letter Jar project has had one consistent theme, it's gratitude. At times it has seemed there are as many reasons to be grateful as there are names in the jar (a wonderful situation indeed). I've thanked:

*A former employee for his dedication and creativity

*A one-time presidential candidate for treating me with respect when I interviewed him as a cub reporter

*My son's daycare teacher for her extraordinary support and skill

*The public defender who made me a better reporter

I've thanked an airline customer service agent who made a difference for me at a crucial moment, favorite musicians for sharing their gifts. Old flames for teaching me how to have fun. My parents for raising me well.

The dozens of thank yous I've penned have humbled me -- I've wondered at times how an average gal like me gets so lucky and deserves such riches. However the letter below, discovered through the truly amazing Letters of Note website, shows that not even the most "un-average" among us are above acknowledging help. Here, on the 25th anniversary of the lunar landing, the first man on the moon thanks the makers of his "EMU," or Extravehicular Mobility Unit:

To the EMU gang:

I remember noting a quarter century or so ago that an emu was a 6 foot Australian flightless bird. I thought that got most of it right.

It turned out to be one of the most widely photographed spacecraft in history. That was no doubt due to the fact that it was so photogenic. Equally responsible for its success was its characteristic of hiding from view its ugly occupant.

Its true beauty, however, was that it worked. It was tough, reliable and almost cuddly.

To all of you who made it all that it was, I send a quarter century's worth of thanks and congratulations.

Sincerely,

Neil A. Armstrong

The perfect thank you -- humble, heartfelt and even a little humorous (the "almost cuddly" EMU?) Who doesn't have someone to thank for working for us, for giving us a lift when we needed it, for a boost in our critical hour?

Write on.

Luck of the Draw

One of the things I love about The Letter Jar project is its randomness. I resolved at the beginning not to write my letters in a particular order, knowing that I would choose "easy" recipients -- former work colleagues, teachers, my favorite authors -- first and postpone the more emotionally complicated letters to family, close friends, ex-lovers.

So each day I pull a name from the jar. Over the past week I've written to my mother, a fellow stepmom I met through an Internet chat board, my 14-year-old nephew and a competitor at my first reporting job.

Never knowing what -- or, more accurately, whom -- I'm going to get when I open the jar means I also don't know what kind of mindset I'll require when I sit down to write. Will I plumb the depths of my emotions as I realize I'm now the age my mother was when she made major life changes? Or will I write a less challenging, but still gratifying, letter to simply acknowledge how the skill and ambition of my former competitor forced me to up my game and made me better at my job?

Your Aunt Lynn is working on a project to write 365 letters in 365 days,  I wrote to my nephew. I know it sounds crazy -- why wouldn't I just use e-mail or Facebook or a text to get in touch with people? I've always written letters, though, ever since I was pretty young. And I really enjoy it. There is something about the process of putting pen to paper that helps me really tell people how I feel about them.

While my Letter Jar method could be aptly described as "the luck of the draw," it also seems there is luck in every draw -- for all my relationships, and in all the ways they have taught and enriched and strengthened me, I am lucky indeed.


THE LOST ART: Thanks to Jackie at Letters & Journals for linking to a story in The Guardian about "comedian and serial tweeter Sue Perkins, who is fronting a campaign to get people back into the habit of writing to one another." Write on!

Family Matters, Part II

As I wrote tonight to M, my brother's mother-in-law, I was reminded how fortunate I am to belong to not only my blood family, but the extended family I have been privileged to inherit.

(My brother) became your son-in-law and you embraced his whole clan--mom, dad, sister, sister's husband and stepson too. It really feels good when to gather for Christmas or whenever as a big family.

Early on in The Letter Jar Project I wrote to M's brother, who shares his sister's welcoming spirit. I recounted to him how I will never forget a special Christmas spent at his house, and the way he reached out to my stepson.

It really meant a lot to me when you sat with (my stepson) at the piano ... I think the trip stressed him out a little because he didn't know any of my extended family, but he really enjoyed playing the piano and really enjoyed as you sat with him and taught him a little about playing. It meant a lot to me to see him relax and have a good time doing that.

I feel grateful that our holiday gatherings are filled with such warmth and love, and it doesn't matter who is directly related to whom.

A few days ago I wrote about my blood family, and how they make me feel rooted no matter how far I roam--they are my place to come home to. Writing tonight I realized that family, that welcoming place, is defined less by genes and more by the bonds we form and the care we show each other.

M, for example, was incredibly supportive and interested during my pregnancy last year. I was terrible at giving updates, but M still checked in regularly by e-mail and Facebook to see how I was doing.

And the blankets you and N (M's daughter, my brother's wife) made--so beautiful. I was so touched. Sometimes when I'm rocking my son to sleep at night I'll have one draped over him, and he likes to run it through his fingers while he falls asleep. Thank you again for such a loving gift.

I ended my letter to M by noting how I've come to understand that my son and stepson are parts of an ongoing story--my husband and I are building our family so that we can be roots for the boys and their families someday. And more than ever, I understand that it is not only our duty, but it is also our privilege.

A SURPRISE COMBINATION OF TWO OF MY PASSIONS: I've always loved discovering new music, and was intrigued to read recently that the new Arcade Fire album, The Suburbs, was inspired by love letters that frontman Win Butler wrote to a sweetheart in high school. He explained the song "We Used to Wait" to Britain's NME magazine:

"In high school I had a letter-writing romance with a girl. I was trying to remember that time... waiting an entire summer, pretty much half a year, the anxiousness of waiting for letters to arrive. All day every day there's almost this cloud of feeling hanging over everything. We'd (his family) be in Maine, I'd walk down to the post office and come back… the whole day was consumed by that feeling."

A song about the "anxiousness of waiting for letters to arrive." How completely cool--I must check out the song and the album. In the meanwhile, you can check out more of the NME  interview here.

Could it possibly really be a wonderful life?

For which I'm expected to show up?

Not long after I finished letter #131 (to T, a public defender with whom I once worked), my husband R and I had an quarrel. Several days on I can't recall exactly how it got started, but I definitely remember something R said to me:

"You just can't let yourself be happy."

My first reaction, of course, was to object. But of course I'm happy, I told him. Why wouldn't I be? I have such a wonderful life--loving husband, beautiful children, sturdy roof over our heads, reliable transportation to take us to steady employment each day--how could I not be happy?

There's a difference, R pointed out, between saying you're happy and being happy.

I fumed, muttering away to myself (rather unhappily, I might add) about how he was just wrong. I mean, come on--at that point I'd written 131 letters, all of which made at least some reference to the abundant blessings in my life (the aforementioned marriage, family, car and job, of course, as well as the friendships of my letter recipients, happy memories created with them and hopes for reunions to come). I'm happy, damn it.

But if I've learned anything in almost five years with R (three and a half of them as husband and wife), it's that he often knows me better than I know myself. Could it possibly be true that I was running around saying I was happy, without allowing myself the luxury of actually being happy?

Well, now. That felt icky. And uncomfortable. And kinda true.

It's not that I've lied to anyone, in any letter--I do have a ridiculously huge amount of blessings in my life. But I also have, as Tori Amos so eloquently put it, "enough guilt to start my own religion." And guilt, that turd in the punch bowl, it will make you question--sadly makes me question--whether you deserve your happiness.

Yes, some of my letters portray a girl who has screwed up--I've hurt people, most times unintentionally, but on occasion with more awareness than I'd like to admit. I've broken promises. Failed to meet obligations. Haven't shown up.

But the letters also reflect someone who has grown up--I'm admitting the hurts I've inflicted, acknowledging the broken promises and unfulfilled responsibilities. I'm recognizing the places--literal and figurative--I should have been and wasn't.

This woman, that girl growing up, has been offered by the universe an immeasurable bounty. And to refuse to truly accept those blessings--my son's happy babble as he awakens in the morning, rain falling outside our livingroom window on a summer evening, a kiss goodnight from my husband--well, that's just screwing up all over again. It's time to let go of guilt, stop inflicting more hurt and honor the vows I'm living right now.

In short, it's time to show up.

Thanking My Teachers

Last weekend I pulled from The Letter Jar the name of K, my high school journalism teacher. This morning it was D, my kindergarten teacher.

Seeing their names called to mind two sets of school memories that, while very different, have both filled me with gratitude.

I thanked K for encouraging me as a journalist, in class and on the high school paper and yearbook. I always knew I wanted to be a writer, and from people like her I learned not only grammar and news sense but also to develop my own style and to always strive to grow and improve. I've enjoyed a successful writing career--in daily newspapers and magazines, public relations and now blogging--and I wanted to acknowledge and thank K for preparing and supporting me.

I'm still writing the letter to D. I don't necessarily want to thank her for what she taught me--don't get me wrong, knowing the alphabet and how to count to 10 do come in awfully handy--but rather for choosing the profession she did. As I watch my son with his teachers at daycare and my stepson with his at school, I recognize teaching for the incredibly vital and yet extraordinarily underappreciated calling that it is.

Teachers give us knowledge, yes, but the good ones also impart wisdom. They teach--through their words and more importantly their actions--the values of patience, of hard work, of perseverance. They encourage kindness and curiosity and cooperation. They cherish laughter and smiles and triumph.

Obviously when I was 5, D was simply the one who smiled at me each morning, who praised my drawings, who made it all better when I fell on the playground. I couldn't have possibly fully understood then how important a job she was doing. But now, 34 years on, I think I do understand. And I want to thank her--for being there for me, for my little brother and for the dozens of kids who came before us and after us. I'm sure I'm not the first to thank her, and I hope I'm not the last.

What do you remember about your teachers? How is what they taught you alive in your life today?

Short-lived Yet Long-lasting

This morning I wrote a letter to S, once the roommate of my husband R--long before R was my husband, even before he was much of a serious boyfriend.

S and I didn't really know each other all that well back then, and still don't. But that didn't matter when I added his name to THE LETTER JAR.

What mattered was that S came through for me in a most unexpected, but truly appreciated, way that I've never forgotten:

I remember going to the room you shared with R, trying to find him because he had told me he would meet me somewhere, but didn't show. R wasn't there, but you were. Now you didn't even have to open the door, much less invite me in and talk to me. But you did, and you very kindly told me that perhaps being involved with R at that point wasn't a good idea.

Now this many years on it probably seems comical--you do not want to date my roommate, seriously!--but in fact it was an incredibly sensitive way you handled it, at the time.

My interaction with S lasted about 15 minutes and happened about 18 years ago. But given we were all in college back then, with so much personal stuff to preoccupy each one of us, it still strikes me that S took a moment to talk to essentially a random girl about her unrequited crush.

Most people in your shoes would have informed me R wasn't there and sent me on my way. That you cared enough to have a conversation sticks with me to this day.

Which has become the point of this project, honestly ... people and the interactions we have with them, long-term or for the briefest of moments, are what are lasting and remembered.

As I noted to S--and he already knew--R and I did reunite many, many years post-college and are actually the quite happy new mom and dad to a 7-month-old and stepmom and dad to a 7-year-old.

While maybe the 20-year-old R wasn't someone I ought to have been involved with, his 38-year-old counterpart is truly a blessing in my life--strong, supportive, sensitive and more loving that I feel I deserve sometimes.

My letter was to S was number 98, and among those first 97 were some pretty long, fairly wide-ranging missives to people I've known most of my life, telling them all the ways I've admired and learned from them. It was refreshing to write a letter with such a singular purpose--to thank the recipient for simply being there at one moment in time. Our interaction was short-lived but its impact was long-lasting.

PACKAGE TRACKING WASN'T AN OPTION: Yesterday I heard an entertaining NPR interview with Jay and Les, who are among the riders reenacting the 150-year-old Pony Express. Who knows how this project might be evolving if a letter took 10 days to get from Missouri to California?

Signed, Sealed ... Delivered?

Tonight I found myself, for the first time, actually not knowing where to send a letter. I signed it, I sealed it, but I didn't know how to deliver it.

I'd written the letter in question to a police lieutenant who had been a source of mine back when I was a newspaper reporter. This lieutenant, as I told him in my letter, had been a tough but fair source who made me work harder. I was a better reporter because of him, and I wanted him to know that.

After finishing the letter, I "Googled" him just to confirm he was still with the same police department, so I could send the letter there.

Turns out he was a lieutenant with that same force ... up until just this last March, when he retired. If only I'd drawn his name sooner from THE LETTER JAR.

Well police lieutenants, for good reason, don't make their home addresses public. "Where was I going to send the letter?" I wondered.

Ultimately I settled for sending it to the police department's public information officer, who had written the press release about the lieutenant's retirement. I explained to her the project and asked that she please pass on the enclosed letter if she is still in contact with the lieutenant.

Expecting some skepticism on her part, I named a couple other lieutenants (sergeants at the time I knew them) who could vouch for my identity and encouraged her to read the enclosed letter should she have any doubts about its content.

This isn't the first time I've written a letter to one person and sent it to someone else. Before composing another letter--interestingly, also to a news source (this one a politician) whose expectations of me I felt made me a better reporter--I Googled the person to see if I could still find him. Turns out he'd died in 2006. I still wrote the letter, but to his wife--I told her I was sorry to read of his passing and how her husband had been a positive influence in my career. The gracious letter I received in return, thanking me for my words and telling me how touched her husband would have been to know he made a difference in someone's career, was the very first reply I received in the course of this project.

This, however, is the first time I've been left wondering if the letter will ultimately reach its intended destination. Kind of a new twist on the tree falling in the woods with no one around: if you write a letter but the recipient never sees it, does it make a difference?

Wisdom ... Without Warning

Today I wrote a short letter to R, a coworker from our information services department with whom I typically exchange "hellos" as we pass in the hallway. (I have to say that in some ways I'm glad our longer conversations--incidental as they are to my computer going on the fritz--have been infrequent.)

It was a surprise then, that some of my most cherished wisdom from my first few weeks of motherhood came from none other than R. He is a Facebook friend of mine, and like so many others weighed in with congratulations soon after my son was born. So many times I reread and repeated to myself R's message:

Congrats ... take it easy ... enjoy the moments of quiet and remember you are doing everything right ...

"Remember you are doing everything right." As I told R in my letter to him, those words--read in a hormonal and sleep-deprived funk--affected me profoundly. What new mother doesn't second-guess herself through those early days? "Remember you are doing everything right." Oh how those words calmed me when I could feel the icy grip of anxiety closing in time and again.

Just goes to show, I guess, that wisdom--like the proverbial closest emergency exit on the plane--isn't always in the first place you'd look. (Something to remember, perhaps, when you're desperately seeking an answer and you're just convinced you're looking in all the right places?) When you do find it, it's worth acknowledging.

NEXT READ: My mom has me excited about Lee Kravitz's new book, Unfinished Business: One Man's Extraordinary Year of Trying to Do the Right Things. The summary goes something like this: Kravitz, fired from his job as editor of Parade magazine, chronicles how he launched a journey--around the world and around the corner--to make amends with the people and pieces of his life from which he had become disconnected. Sounds intriguing, and inspiring.