Saturday Girl - why I'll miss six-day-a-week postal delivery

Saturday Girl

Why I will miss the six-day-a-week postal service

Today's news that the U.S. Postal Service is cutting back to five-day delivery hit me kind of hard, even though it was not surprising.

I have to support it. I knew they were in the red, after all.

I just worry that this portends something a little bigger -- like no service.

For all the kids out there who don't care about this, let me explain why this hurts: bigger than the transition from albums to CDs to iTunes, bigger than landlines to mobiles and real-life pals to Facebook friends, the postal service transition could be dark, really dark.

Letters from my past

My grandmother Mimi used to send me letters (see photo). When she passed, I had access to her thoughts, how she wanted me to find a nice Jewish boy, keep reading, keep doing well in school, and when I had a moment read her latest proverb. 

Mimi took proverbs and with her calligraphy, turned them into art for the Jewish Heritage of Los Angeles. These proverbs would later be a gift to me during times of questioning how to live my life.

Not only Mimi, but my other grandmother Mama Sue, wrote me countless missives about grades, South Texas, the Southern Baptist church where I was baptised, the family reunion, black-eyed peas, you name it.

Sadly, I no longer have Mama Sue's letters except in my memory.

I've also recited to memory letters from my first love, C., who once took the Pink Floyd song "Wish you Were Here" and turned it into a profession of love. He'd broken up the lyrics into binder paper puzzle pieces, mailed to me from U.C. Davis, and I had to piece it together by numbers.

After the full lyrics, I found Piece No. 48: "I love you."

I kept all of C's letters tied up in a brown shoelace, criss-cross style, and threw them into a woman's garage along with my old prom dresses and yearbooks when I moved to the east coast.

When I lost all of that stuff, a part of my heart was lost with it.

Letters.

Have.

Value.

Think of Christmas

I know of no more joyous rush than the one I get every season, flush with winter, racing to the post office, to mail my packages out west.

If it's a year I'm heading to California, the same rush is miniaturized by my mailing copious amounts of Christmas cards.

I  whined about the e-card trend this year, telling everyone who cared (and many who didn't) that these were okay for birthdays or promotions but certainly not my hallowed Christmas.

Even so, I got them, thanked the senders and filed them away.

I am sure all of these e-cards will probably fall into the trash bin of my laptop's non-sentimental hard drive before you can say so much as "told ya so."

Meanwhile, the Christmas cards I've managed to collect in the 12 years since I've been on the east coast are now attractively gathering dust in my storage locker.

I visit them from time to time, their comments a touchstone on how far I've come (or haven't) in these many years. Sometimes the sender isn't even someone I'd talk to anymore. Other times it's a family member, congratulating me on a job I've just attained or a new home. Many times a friend's family photo falls out, and I am breathless, looking at how fast these babies grow up.

When you're gone

I cherish most the cards I've gotten from my parents over the years, and lately, fewer and fewer. We're all chatting on e-mail, quickly, not bothering with Spellcheck.

I would hug these cards and marry them if I could. I love a postcard from my dad's business trip back in the day or Mom's European adventure with my brother in the mid-90s.  I love checking to see which address these were sent to, and sometimes can barely remember where it was I lived at the time.

Letters.

Are.

A Touchstone.

We open them and we are reminded not only of how much someone loves/loved or likes/liked us, but more importantly, who we were at that point in time. On this journey called life.

And I know, yes I know, that things do change. I get it. I am writing this blog entry on a laptop. I rarely write by hand anymore unless I'm scribbling in a leather-bound journal that was a gift for my birthday or traveling. I love sending postcards.

So I would urge all of you who read this to send one letter this week to someone you love. Do it for the postal service, Valentine's Day, and the understanding that life is as fleeting....as today's price on that stamp.