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!

On Paper, In Person

Funny how writing so many letters to old friends can make you want to meet some new ones too.

A few weeks ago I wrote to A, a friend I made some eight years ago when we both attended a nonprofit management course at a local university. A was the director of a local Jewish center, and I was relatively new to a position in public affairs for the university health science campus.

A and I got to know each other in brief chats before and after class and during breaks, and when the course was finished we met a few times for breakfast. Writing to him I realized that as I have moved into a different phase in my life -- from working in public relations to a more solitary editing position, with another full-time job at home raising a toddler -- I miss the opportunities I used to have to meet new people.

As time has gone by I don't necessarily remember what we talked about during our breakfasts ... but what I do still remember very well is the experience of meeting someone new and broadening my horizons through shared experience and conversation and connection. If this letter-writing project has taught me (or perhaps more accurately, reminded me of) anything, it's that life is about relationships and the bonds we forge with others ... and the friendship I shared with you serves as a reminder of something I enjoy ... meeting new people from different walks of life and learning from and being inspired by them.

In my nostalgia for days gone by and the connections I made naturally working in public relations, I realized that I can still broaden my horizons even now. Forging new relationships may take a little more effort than it did in my 20s, but it's still possible -- I am aware that I need only be willing to show up in different places than I normally do, and reach out to the people I find there. That simple formula, after all, launched relationships with the dozens of friends whose names are in The Letter Jar -- we crossed paths at the beach as kids, at a church youth group, in a college dorm, at a meeting of a professional association.

I know I could find ways to meet new people once again, and the warm memories of getting to know you serve as an inspiration to do so. Thank you not only for the friendship you gave me at the time but for helping to rekindle a part of myself that has gone needlessly quiet.

I ended my note to A, residing a half dozen states away, as I do so many letters to far-flung friends: I told him I didn't know when our paths might cross again, but, until they do, to take care and God bless.

Turns out those paths will cross sooner than later -- A typed me a letter (he explained, apologetically, that I would be unable to read anything he handwrote) and said he'll be in my area for a conference in just two weeks. I don't know if you call that serendipity, or synchronicity, or what, but I am so glad A's name came out of the jar when it did. I'm looking forward to a chance to go "off paper" and "in person" for a while.


WELL-SCRIPTED: When I started my @theletterjar account on Twitter, I naturally used the #letters hashtag to search for like-minded "tweeps." (The irony of using the epitome of 21st century technology to find enthusiasts of a 19th century pastime is not lost on me.) I was somewhat bombarded at the time with tweets about the movie "Letters to Juliet," which was just hitting the theaters. Tonight I noticed the movie has made it to my Pay Per View -- perhaps it's finally time to indulge in a little "letter as plot device" romantic drama.

Learning to Fly

So I started out
For God knows where
I guess I'll know
When I get there.

~Tom Petty, "Learning to Fly"


If The Letter Jar project had a soundtrack, that song would probably be the opening cut.

Those words have always spoken to me, someone who isn't afraid to embrace the gypsy side of her nature. I can appreciate the idea of life being one big surprising journey--I may not know where I'm ultimately going to end up, but I'm certainly enjoying the sites I have the good fortune to happen upon.

And enjoying as well, the people I'm lucky enough to meet along the way.

Tonight I wrote to my former coworker P and her partner M. I worked with P at a community college in Albuquerque, where I moved with my first husband a decade ago.

P and M, as I told them in my letter, are some of the most genuine, authentic, unpretentious people you will ever meet. They both have such a way of putting you at ease, you feel like an old friend almost immediately. We rarely correspond anymore, but I nonetheless recalled warm memories the very moment I pulled their names from The Letter Jar.

Writing to them, I was struck once again by the seeming randomness--that indeed is likely much less random than I think--that rules the events in my life and the people those events bring me to. My ex-husband and I, Midwesterners when we met, vacationed in the southwest and decided to relocate. That decision gave me the opportunity to meet not only P (and through her, M) but also a whole host of other fascinating, funny, caring people I'm lucky to count among my friends. These are people I've been challenged by, learned from, laughed with and cried on. My life story wouldn't be same without them.

I appreciate the reminder of life's surprises, as I now find myself not moving physically, but nonetheless moving, into another phase in my life as a new mother. I've begun to notice as I write my letters that I am feeling grateful for the relationships I have formed over my lifetime--as a high school and college student, entry-level journalist, career changer, thirtysomething newlywed stepmother--and I'm yearning to form new ones.

The prospect seems daunting--making new friends at this stage in life feels at least different, if not more challenging, than back in college when I was rooming with a dorm full of fellow students and going to classes in big lecture halls each day--until I remember how I've made so many of the important connections in my life. I simply need to keep my mind open to life's unpredictable journey and my heart open to the people I meet along the way.

YOU MUST READ THIS: I'm so glad to have received an inquiry the other day from Felix Jung of the absolutely mesmerizing blog Dead Advice. He asked if I might be willing share a link to his work. You bet.

"Imagine, for a moment, that you have just died," Dead Advice challenges you on its front page. "If you had to look back over the arc of your life as it stands today, what stories would you tell? What lessons would you share, what things might you regret or confess?"

Take some time, read some letters. I suggest starting with Felix's own, A Small List of Big Things, which is poignant and funny, brilliant really. Then think about your letter ... a fascinating prospect, no?

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?