On Friday, I received a letter from a Washington, D.C., friend of mine whom I’d met two summers ago while studying abroad in Paris.
We’ve been keeping up the exchange of handwritten letters on and off for about a year now, but we have just entered a new “on” phase. She wrote her letter on notebook paper with broad characters, elaborating on her second trip to France, asking me about my plans “post-graduation.”
Eagerly, I composed a letter of my own to write back — a full sheet and then half of another — answering some of her questions and posing new ones as well. Then I folded my papers up, placed them in an envelope, and slipped the fresh ink into my apartment mailbox, which hangs on the wall outside with the others.
The next day, I found new mail in my box — just some advertisements — in addition to my untouched, stamped letter that I thought would already by bound for the capital by now.
“Huh,” I thought, examining the letter. “Why didn’t he take it?”
I suspected my problem was the flap on top of the box. Maybe the flap was the equivalent of the traditional red mailbox flag: leave it up if you have outgoing mail. After repositioning it, I left Bloomington for the weekend. Upon my return, I was greeted, once again, by my own loyal untouched envelope.
Not wanting to risk another day of non-delivery, I wrote on a post-it a small request: “Dear Mailman, Please take my letter inside my mailbox. Thank you.”
Understandably, it sounds like something a clueless and lonely child would write, some kind of effort to strike up an exchange of messages with the mailman himself that would culminate in a lasting feel-good friendship (Hollywood has probably already done it). But I was lost and confused. Do I place the letter on top of the mailbox? Under it? Better to make my wish explicit.
Then today, as I was rounding the corner of the porch towards the steps on my way to class, I saw a real mailman at my box, and he was writing on my note. I glided past him, not wanting him to connect my ignorance with my face, even though in the long run it probably wouldn’t matter.
Still, like a child again, I was ecstatic that he would take the time to reply. Not merely following my words, this man was composing his own. What could he be saying? Maybe he’s writing a joke or something clever. I was dying to know.
On the sidewalk, I hid under my umbrella until the mailman left. Then I bounded back up and snatched the scribbled yellow note off my mailbox, which was empty at last.
“All outgoing mail is to be placed outside box,” he wrote. An arrow gestured towards the small rusty binder clip on the lip of the mailbox, whose use — up to this point — had been unknown to me: “Use the clamp.”
“Oh, I get it,” I thought. The clip had not simply been placed there due to the boredom or recklessness of one of my previous tenants, as I had originally believed. The clip in fact had a meaning. But I am the kind that sometimes only gets it if you write it out for me in large clear words. My friend the mailman did so, and now, thanks to him, I can decisively send mail.
It does make me wonder, though, if I’m making my life more complicated than it needs to be: maybe there are little items everywhere, such as the clip on my mailbox, that look like accidents but have an actual purpose. If only we considered what the use could be for the seemingly useless, there might be more in the world at our fingertips.
And for me, I would have gotten that damn letter out sooner.
