Candles for Anna

Yesterday was the birthday of a railroad widow I came to know. She's been dead a long time. She comes to mind every January 26. It's my way of honoring a friendship not sought out but inevitable as I spent time in her sweet presence.

Her name was Anna. She was in her 80s when we met. Her last name was Irish but I learned she was born of parents from central Europe. She was Bohemian she said. She shared the same Catholic faith with the young Irishman she fell in love with and whose name, along with his two sons, she bore.

In writing the church history she was a name given to me as being a font of information. I interviewed her at her apartment and then went back to see her as a friend.

She was kind and interesting. Hers had not been an easy life. Her disposition mirrored her peaceful acceptance of events. She made me so welcome on every visit.

She told about a railroad accident which her husband, on a rare free day from work, had had to respond to. This happened probably back in the 1920s. They were all set to leave on a picnic when the news came to him that he must get to the rail yard fast.

She was left with the picnic lunch, into which she’d put such care, and two disgruntled little boys who had their hearts as set on the outing as she had.

All of us go through a remarkable number of small disappointments. I could imagine her sitting there with the picnic basket and no place to go on a lovely summer day.

The train wreck needed her prayers and thoughts. She could quickly and naturally respond to the gravity of the situation. She put her disappointment as a small thing compared to that. But she must have wondered about life’s timing. The train mishap, as if on cue, happened at the very moment to prevent the anticipated picnic.

There were other memories she shared with me, such as the excitement every summer among the ladies of the church as they got ready for the annual festival.

Pushing their babies in strollers they visited the downtown shops selling tickets for raffles and promoting the fundraising efforts of the little parish church. She had a special friend who made the expeditions a lark. They must have relished the chance to be out for a cause, taking sensible advantage of this chance to pair up and be out on the town.

There was insane enjoyment in their volunteer work. It gave them reason to dress up a bit. It let them briefly be part of the civic scene. They visited with the store owners not as customers but as the sales people they were as they came to boost the parish festival.

Sadly, the friend died at a young age. Anna's story, vivid with animated recall, quietly ended.

In life we meet truly lovely people. Sometimes it’s for a short time. Sometimes it’s for a long while. We don’t know a lot of people a whole lifetime. Luckily they can stay with us through memory, such as my thoughts of Anna, and Anna's that day of her friend.

If living, Anna would be well over a hundred. The light of her memory is like her birthday candles. They shine with the fire of love that has eternal glow.

Ro Giencke - 2011

Winter with Ernest Hemingway

Blue skies and white banks of compacted snow print a January scene on the retina while the brain, disregarding the message it receives, goes on searching for a blaze of tropical color for eyes to latch onto.

My friend is spending the month in Arizona and she has made a good decision. I recall how sunny and mild the Southwest can be from winters in Texas and New Mexico. Mesas, cacti and the turquoise vault overhead would be perfect antidotes to the Minnesota winter this has turned out to be.

One can deal with persistent cold even though it gets to be a strain. It’s the wind and the constant spurts of snow – falling in amounts just enough to gum up the roads for commutes – which have put the Winter of 2011 into the high nuisance bracket.

Maybe it’s the cold weather which is keeping the squirrels out of sight. I do remember there was a period last year when they disappeared. Then all of a sudden they were all over the place.

Some were in the high branches of the trees the other day. So we’re still spotting a few. Like last winter, we wonder how they dare jump from limb to high limb. A strong gust, as has been blowing lately, could surely throw their light weight off.

The rosemary shrub we brought in from the deck has amazingly flourished. It has bright green growth at the tips. The sprigs smell so good when rubbed through the fingers. The plant, in its pot close to the window, must feel the nip of outside air.

No doubt it puzzles how it ended up here. What tweak of fortune, it ponders, prevented it from the destiny it had in mind for itself, to be an ornamental bush trimmed with pretty blue flowers, giving definition to some residential corner lot two skips and a hop away from the sea.

January is a good time to visit on the phone. It’s easier than warming up cars and driving in frozen state across town. I recently had a good conversation with a friend on the other end of the line.

We were enjoying the sunshine as we talked. It’s been a rather cloudy period. We agreed that a cold day full of sunshine is a pretty good deal.

I said I'd finished some ironing. Certain pieces of clothing are really helped by the touch-up an iron gives. I don’t iron often. Once in awhile a burst of ironing commitment comes over me and then it’s a rather enjoyable job. A pressed shirt or pair of slacks can look so neat.

Interestingly enough, even when we don’t like the snow, cold and blow, we’re trained from childhood here to deal with it. A surge of coping comes along, lifting us when we most need the energy to handle it. Coping is done by connecting in my book. Communication of all kinds bridges the season for me.

Al catches fish and this adds to the variety of winter meals. We’ve been eating well and simply. We stock up on items on our grocery trips. It’s nice to save a trip or two to the store at this cold time.

I remind myself, when my eye can’t fasten on hibiscus and I clomp out of the house in my warmest boots to the road salt-grimed car, that this has been a shorter winter for us than for some. We did get away after all. It already seems far in the past. But we did have a break from this.

We were in Key West over Christmas. It was a wonderful time. A highlight for me was a visit to the home of writer Ernest Hemingway.

Hemingway reaches into me. He’s one of my first picks as a novelist. It made settling on a book, once we were home, very easy. Across the River and into the Woods –not considered one of his great books but one that suits me – is on the reading table now.

Hemingway, we learned, as the tour led to the final stop, and several of the forty-five resident cats were pointed out, had an upstairs studio. It's separate from the house. It's set amid palms and reached by an outside staircase. The swimming pool his third wife put in while he was away in Europe stretches out blue and inviting below.

The studio has been left intact. His work space is as he used it and as it was arranged. His Royal typewriter is on the table. The author often wrote standing up. Shrapnel from WWI was never fully removed. He was often in pain from that.

The upstairs hallway of his home has a glassed-in bookcase. It interested me to see his personal collection. Imagine someone coming into your house and standing in front of your selections, whether music, books or any other topic of private interest. Disconcertingly, complete strangers evaluate your selections, scanning the rows of titles.

It could make you not want to strive for greatness, just knowing this could be in the works for you. Fleetingly I thought of the mishmash of personal articles in almost anyone’s home. More than we suspect, the objects we surround ourselves with or collect reveal us.

Pardon me, Hemingway, I said, looking over the titles as I could make them out. I just want to know you – the full and complex man whose writings still hold us. As he clacked away on the Royal these very books must have helped shape the stories he set down to tell.

Bibles or hymn books, old tomes which were likely family keepsakes, were shelved with what must have been, at the time, a current detective novel. I smiled to see The Adventures of Tom Sawyer among the reference volumes and other books.

I pictured Hemingway at the bookcase hunting for a book – a certain book according to mood or frame of mind. The shelves would be scoured for something that gave solace or provided entertainment or escape according to the whim.

Even in Key West, where winter is no problem, books while away time, add richness to the day and help craft a writer’s creativity.

While vacationing, we tried to establish how many trips to Florida we’ve made. I’m not sure if we ever came to an exact number. There have been several air flights and driving vacations. There were fun times with the kids with all the things in Florida for a family to do.

Thinking about Florida pushed memory all the way back. At ten it would have been impossible to regard Florida as in my future. It was beyond the reality I could take in. Moreover, it was in the opposite direction of any vacation trip we took, which was West to the Pacific Coast.

But that year, my tenth year or so, my cousins went to Florida. They went to the Everglades. They drove all the way to Key West. As if that wasn’t epic enough, they ended their road trip not by going home to Missouri but my looping way north to visit us.

After hot Florida the thought of the cool waters of the lake region worked on their notions better than aloe vera on sunburns. There was still beach sand in the car when they arrived. It was on the car mats. It was white and soft as powder. They laughed as they shook it out.

It could have been grains of magic for the effect the beach sand had on me. I was so impressed with my aunt and uncle and cousins. To me they had seen the world. The spirit of adventure that informed their vacations added to my desire to travel widely too.

None of us knows with certainty who plants the first seeds of our longings. Admiration for people or places derives from deep places as well as coming upon us full-blown. But many aspirations certainly are formed in our early years.

I gave a silent thank you to my relatives as we enjoyed the Key West vacation. In a big way, without knowing it, they helped bring this about.

The seeds of my longings were in the soft, white stowaway sand. Sun, sand and travel have proved to be the trio that spark my ambitions, shape my interests and soothe my inner being. They put all the rest into context, including a lumpy, bumpy January soon coming to an end.

Ro Giencke -2011

Martin Luther King: 25th Anniversary Tribute

This is the 25th anniversary of the Martin Luther King holiday as a Federal holiday. I trace back the long thread of those years to that first designated holiday. It was 1986 as both the arithmetic and memory inform me. It was our first winter in our new home. The day itself, I believe, was mild enough to comment on.

We did what a lot of young couples do when a day is given to you free to fill. We used it on ourselves. We went out for breakfast which we happen to like to do. We ordered bacon and eggs and pancakes which we ate with gusto. We read the paper, sipped our coffee. We came home the scenic route which took us along an iced-over river, snowy banks rising on either side.

The memory of the mild gray morning, snowy fields and the breakfast date with my husband is so clear, after such a span of time, because of one specific thing. That particular Monday was speaking to us, carefree as we were. The creation of our own ritual within the new holiday has held as a lasting image because loosely we understood the intent of the day.

It was a baby start but a start. In schools, in the years when our kids were small, the King holiday often served as an opening for studying and celebrating diversity. This, too, was a good start. Many wonderful things start small. They build upon themselves and evolve as a kind of test of time.

The twenty-fifth anniversary is a milestone of sorts. The King holiday is in our makeup. It's in our soul. I wonder, on this occasion marking going forward into the next twenty-five years, what Dr. King would want us to take into the future as his continuing legacy.

His greatness is never in doubt. His stirring words will move the generations. His natural leadership, in the speeches that sang with poetry and rang with passionate oratory, rallied and repelled. Standing to the crowds Martin Luther King shook the country's conscience.

He was a lightning rod for change. Racial inequalities needed to cease. They needed to be corrected and this seemed feasible only by something close to social revolution. Oh yes, the man had mountains to climb.

When he scaled those heights, like the prophet he was, he called out. I have a dream, he said. I have a dream.

Like a shaking off of slothfulness, or as rising from a deep slumber, a purposeful rumbling grew. It got stronger and spread. We Shall Overcome, the marchers sang. The dream was received into the world.

America and its people went through birth throes in the loss of innocence that began with John F. Kennedy's assassination in 1963.

By the year 1968 there was no naivete left. Within months of each other King and Robert F. Kennedy, impassioned voices for the unclaimed and the unheard, vital men at the height of their powers, were dead. And people wept and wondered as they fell.

Many use today, the Martin Luther King holiday, as a day for volunteerism or service. Some take time to reflect. We look up his speeches. We study the quotes. We inspect our attitudes in the light of his light. We have learned. As a nation we continue to grow.

-honoring Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., 1929-68.

Community of the Mind

December is the holiday time of the year whether one is involved in religious observances or not.

You only have to pay attention at five in the afternoon to pinpoint one of the reasons we almost demand celebration now. At this dark season there is such a need to make merry. We feel it in our very bones.

Human bodies require light and warmth. We have the need to reach out hands and be touched by the comfort of extended friendship.

Days are chilly almost everywhere at this end time of the year. Snow or cold rain drive us in. By instinct we seek the shelter of the cozy home or the good cheer of other folks.

I look out at the quiet neighborhood as early dusk rubs out the last of another cloudy day. The December night waits for this exact moment.

When it’s just dark enough the outdoor lights twinkle on. At house after house, block after block, strings of lights come on. They unite us up and down the street.

It’s like a chain of hope. You can’t help but be soothed by the magic of the soft glow.

The lights enter deep into you as you stand before their spell. You can almost hear the night scene passing an eternal message. “Never fear. Peace is here. If not in the world, in this moment – now”

It’s as if the holiday-lit trees and shrubs, deck rails and roofs of our snow-covered houses have figured out something we still struggle to grasp.

“Look at us,” they say. “Not one of us is the same. But here we all are, dressed to the hilt, of like mind if you wish to call us that, to make festive the long December night.”

The panorama of winter lights is an excellent example of what it is to be a community of the mind.

Inanimate objects can’t function as community as community is reckoned to be. But their steadfast light, night after night through these weeks which bring us to some of the year’s best-kept holy days, can nudge us to act accordingly.

Being of like mind is easier than it would seem. Think hope and proceed with hope are a couple helpful approaches to likemindedness.

We’re a community of the mind when concentration and efforts are aimed toward the intention of living harmoniously or in good spirit as best we can with everyone else.

Community of the mind is continually formed when we work to understand each other.

Our actions come out of respect, for others as well as self-respect. Likemindedness strengthens community. It has the energy behind it to become the norm.

Zip code or address has nothing to do with shaping a community of the mind.

We can live anywhere. Our residence might be in one country. It may be in another. We can live in town, on a mountaintop, in the most remote valley.

If we place our mind on peace, and gently but insistently return to that focus when distracted from it, we live with a purpose wide enough to bring everyone in.

Living peacefully with good will to all has its greatest impact in the community we call home. But make no mistakes. The broadening effect of likemindedness touches hands across the world. The community of the mind begins with each of us.

We grapple today with all sorts of issues. So many things divide us. They divide us to the point of virulent name calling, violent dissension and even war.

We wrestle with the same old stuff which generations past to ancient times did.

Wise men and wise women from the beginning have pondered the meaning of life. They’ve mulled on it, debated it and went after it.

They searched for it with decisive belief. The drive to be our best selves, with human dignity and justice for everyone, rests at the core of our earthly existence.

This is the wisdom against which issues critical to community are weighed.

One thing is for certain and it is this. Community of the mind doesn’t come into being simply because everyone thinks the same.

If group thinking is destructive or hurtful in nature it can’t possibly be this thing we call community. Community strives for higher things.

The mind is too precious a place to harbor the self-defeating germs of anger and revenge, jealousy, greed, pride, bigotry, untruthfulness or prejudice. These germs seek to anchor in the fertile and intelligent spaces which we feed by what we take in.

These damaging seeds cannot possibly be elevated to the status of builders of community. Community makes no alliance with anything that isn’t intrinsically of a constructive nature.

When each of us sees in ourselves, and in all others, the wherewithal to create environments of love and trust we’re on the track to developing global society into a community of the mind.

It’s a place where children can learn and be safe. The elderly can leave the security but also the isolation of their homes to go out into the streets. There they will find even perfect strangers vigilant for their care.

The outside lights which shine at the holidays tell us this world is here. It can be here even more fully as we let ourselves shine as like-minded beacons of hope.

December is a month to reflect as well as to purchase gifts and to party. It’s a time to be happy and to be more than happy. Holidays ask that we fill our hearts with joy and let them not be contained or constrained.

We fill our hearts with joy and give from the fullness. In like-minded generosity we find the peace hungered for in the world.

Going Green for Green

Almost every newspaper or magazine has an article on going green. I'm behind these efforts.

The media have stepped up to educate consumers to the reality that this is exactly what we're doing - consuming. Then they show us how we can balance our consumption and even turn it around.

The green approach might, as a side, help sell green products. It is media's reason for pitching green some cynics suggest. I say hurrah to the endeavor whatever the intention that lies behind it.

There will always be marketing. If some products pitched to the public actually have gentler agents in them or appliances are engineered to require less electricity or water I say more power to the process.

Niches are continually being created for the new. Right now green is an effective niche. It plays to the need for all of us to seriously examine our right to consume without regulation even if it's only self-regulation.

Turning off lights and TV when not in use, walking or biking to cut some necessary car travel (yes, Starbucks coffee counts as necessary trips at times) and reworking and rethinking how we use energy pays back in terms of responsibly conserving.

The commitment to recycle, reuse and reinvent saves in the pocket. More importantly it adds to the global movement to treat our Earth more kindly.

In our household we work at being diligent in returning grocery bags to the store. We use the bags until they're in sad condition. Limp and thin from wear their next journey can only be to the recycling bin.

We run in streaks. Sometimes we get the bags along with us every time. Just like that. Then we go through a period of not remembering. As I tug the store's brown bags out from under to fill with groceries I try not to think of trees being cut. "Sorry," I tell the bag. "This time we forgot."

For quite awhile I've watched people bring their own totes. Many of the totes have store logos on them. They're used for shopping at that particular store. But some totes are taken all around town.

It looks crisp and very European to have a shopper tote dangling from the arm. It makes the shoppers look like thinkers and planners. I'm going shopping and I'm prepared is their mantra as they set out toting their totes.

The idea of joining the shopper tote people grew on me. The other day a dark-green tote caught my eye. It was selling at a check-out counter at the local store. It appeared durable. It had a classy look. It was a size I like, not overlarge but big enough to hold the food items I often run in for.

I turned to the fellow who was filling the nearby candy racks. "I really should buy this," I said to him.

"You really should," he answered agreeably, looking up.

"I will but not this time," I told him. I wheeled the cart to a counter that was open. Since I had to wait in line anyway I followed my original impulse. I went back for the tote.

"You convinced me to buy it," I told the man still shelving Snicker bars and other favorites which my resolve not to buy had made me feel virtuous.

"And I don't even work here," he said with a grin. He appeared happy to assist the store that gives his company business.

I was happy to finally own a shopper bag. So everybody was happy and I only had to pay $1.50 for the green save-the-world-this-is-a-start grocery tote.

Sprinkle of Memories shot with Gold

When my daughter phoned the other night I was at the computer putting down some thoughts regarding her grandpa.

We were ten days away from the second anniversary of his passing. In the last few days I had been made aware of something. Memory, as if it had its own eye on the calendar, was retrieving recollections of dad for me.

Perhaps the recollections were surfacing because of the discovery of the salt and pepper shaker set.

A year and a half into our new home and there remain a few boxes not fully emptied. Last week I was looking for a set of plates that hung on a wall in our former home.

They didn’t fit with the new place when we began filling the space. Treasured objects can look oddly out of character in a new environment.

At the time I wasn’t sure what to do with the plates. They were reboxed and then forgotten. When a spot opened for them to be displayed they suddenly were valuable again. I went in search of them.

Thankfully the plates were in the first box pulled out of storage. When we packed for our move we strived for efficiency. Boxes were marked with their contents. Along the way, however, as items got jumbled in, not everything got marked down.

You close your eyes to the confusion you’re almost surely creating for yourself. If one end of the move is to be easier than the other, you settle the matter by saying, it might as well be the portion of the move you’re currently involved in.

The box located and plates lifted out, my curiosity was piqued by the other items inside. All were swaddled in newspaper. I began unwrapping the pieces one by one wondering what each would be.

The salt and pepper shaker set, with Hawaii stamped on the pedestal, stayed cradled in my hand. Dad’s presence felt very close.

Dad brought the shakers back from Hawaii years ago. We were in our first home then, which helps me estimate the date.

My mom didn’t go on this vacation with him. It strikes me that one of the grandchildren may have been about to be born. Grandmas don’t have a desire to go junketing when there’s an imminent grandchild to welcome into the world.

Whatever the reason, dad went by himself. It had to be winter. I can see him with a twinkle in his eye at the audacity of his plan come to fruitful achievement.

The Minnesota cold was traded for the Hawaiian paradise. Dad visited the USS Arizona Memorial and must have done other things, none of which I remember he went into much telling about.

All I know is he came home tan and happy with a desire to visit Hawaii again. Perhaps as soon as the next year – at Easter I recall – he and mom went to Hawaii together. They had a great time.

They never went back to Hawaii, or anywhere as far, again. But this one really big vacation of their marriage stands out as exceedingly satisfying. The family was happy for them. We actually were rather amazed at the jet set patina our parents now possessed.

I reflected on all this as the salt and pepper set rested in my hand. Dad brought it for me on their next visit. I was touched. He had given thought to the rest of us while he was having the time of his life far away from family or responsibility or any binding ties.

“Here’s something for you from my trip,” he said. It’s the only gift I recall my dad buying for me. There might have been something else – but nothing comes to mind.

When Al and I and the kids visited home dad liked to take us out for coffee or to McDonalds or Burger King or for a noon meal out. He liked to treat. He was a generous host at a restaurant.

But he wasn’t one, ever, to whip out his wallet and pass over a crisp bill and say “Here, go shopping.” He wasn’t the shopper at Christmas or any other time, which in those days may have been considered quite normal. Many family things were for the women to take care of.

Gift giving isn’t how he operated. I don’t think he ever quite perceived the value in gifts. This pertained to the receiving end as well as in the giving.

So the salt and pepper shaker set was huge. That he shopped, selected and carried back on the plane a souvenir from Hawaii as a gift for a daughter meant a lot.

Gently I finished unwrapping the other pieces in the set and brought them all upstairs. Suddenly, along with the plates, I knew where the salt and pepper shakers would go.

In the way one idea feeds another, a second memory of dad came to me. This occurred after Saturday’s snowfall, which laid down nearly a foot of snow.

The weather turned damp and dreary. I looked for some bright color to put myself into. Color is my answer every time gray skies go on.

I tend to wear a fair amount of black. More black than I need to wear Al will say. But I like the versatility of black. Black can make you feel pulled together and professional which is therefore a marvelous color to have in your closet.

Many of us like to dress casually but still hope for some sort of fashion impact which wearing black can help give.

While there’s contention that my wardrobe is heavy on black my take is that my hangers teem with color. Sporting an array of hues my tees and sweaters aren’t exactly the neutrals which stylists recommend.

I must have been in my thirties when I realized dad had an appreciation for color worn on a person. He commented on the color of a top I had on, singling out the shade as cheerful.

It was uncharacteristic of dad to compliment us on what we wore. He disapproved when something looked sloppy and would tell the boys so as they were growing up.

He didn’t like us going barefoot in the house. He thought winter’s cold floors weren’t good for bare feet but, as importantly, bare feet were uncouth. I can’t remember now if that was his term or just the effect his disapproval gave it.

But there was little commentary for the way my sister and I dressed. He either gave it no thought or marked it as mom’s province.

Dad’s compliment on the bright-colored top sank in. Dad, like me, was lifted by color. I probably knew that in a broader sense. We all knew, for example, that he was partial to yellow (as I am).

But a daughter has other thoughts to pursue. It’s not till much later that you see a parent for what they continue to show of themselves, that you didn’t notice so long ago.

Dad commented about some of my gold jewelry too. When I say gold jewelry these are the moderate priced lines found at Kohls or Target. Both stores had opened nearby and suddenly we had amazing shopping right at home.

It was so much fun looking at and being able to afford pieces that spiffed up outfits. I was in a jewelry stage for a long while.

At a Fargo department store, in those same years, I bought a black knit cardigan. I thought it looked very classy with embossed gold buttons.

Eventually I tired of the gold buttons. The sweater probably looked dated after the gold button trend went out.

I decided it was either replace the buttons or get rid of the sweater. I was discussing this with mom on one of our visits home.

She had a button jar with every kind, color and shape of button. I was just able enough to sew on buttons. If mom had the buttons (or even if they had to be bought) I could handle the job.

“I like the sweater,” dad said from his place at the dining room table. “Why would you want to take the buttons off? They make it look nice.” That he was listening in on the conversation surprised me.

Dad had a penchant for things military. I think he saw the gold buttons as making the sweater look sharp and precise which was part of his fascination, I believe, with things military.

In respect to his opinion I left the sweater as it was. It became my knock-around sweater. It’s a stay-in cardigan, worn so much it’s not quite suitable for any place but home.

It comes along on cool evenings to the lake or is grabbed for a wrap when going out into the yard.

The warmth of the cardigan settles on me like a smile. It’s my go-anywhere black sweater even if that going-anywhere is limited by its appearance.

Even dressed down as the sweater gets to be, the gold buttons dress it up. Dad would have approved.

Ro Giencke - 2010

Outside the Box

It’s Veteran’s Day. It’s a beautiful day. It’s all blue and gold as November isn’t generally reckoned to be around here.

I remember a lot of gray, chilly, wet November 11 dates. That’s why our mellow scene feels like an import from elsewhere.

We’ll take today with hands outstretched, as we’ve been gladly extending our hands to the windfall which has been this standout fall.

I’ve given my thoughts today to those who have served. This includes family members drafted out of family life or nascent careers or enlisting at a time of war.

One cannot sufficiently thank them for their service, which is the ultimate giving when you may be put in harm’s way that others may be safe.

Freedom is not to be taken lightly. Never should it be. Those who defend and protect rights that ensure freedom can never be fully repaid by one day of honor. A day like today focuses awareness and that’s always a good place to start.

As a result of it being a Federal holiday there is no mail delivery. Only once or twice in the past have we put out mail forgetting it’s a holiday. Take it from me. You feel sheepish when you have to go out and retrieve your piece of mail when everybody else has it figured out.

Today only one flag was up on the mailboxes. It says most of us are paying attention. Every year on the 11th of the eleventh month we honor our military men and women.

The mail put out in that one mailbox, with the red flag jauntily expecting someone to stop, will probably be trotted inside this evening. It’s someone else’s turn to realize there’ll be no pickup today.

Fortunately arriving yesterday, a day with regular mail delivery, was a card from a friend. She and Al were school classmates. They’re also cousins. Marrying him I acquired her as a friend. By now we go back a long way.

Cleaning out an old desk destined for her niece she came across many interesting items she noted.

Two enclosures inside her card were testimony to the fact. Unfolding the sheets of paper revealed them as letters I wrote to her years ago.

The letters were dated fifteen years apart and were among the findings in her desk drawer. “I thought you might get a smile out of taking a step back in time,” wrote our friend.

The youthful tone of that ancient correspondence allowed me to feel again the grasp of pen in hand as I put order to thoughts tumbling and cartwheeling around me. How exciting life is at twenty-six.

The first letter had news of Al’s promotion, a change of location and purchase of our first home. We were all of 3½ years married.

The second letter, spanning the births of the children and two subsequent career moves, is more general in content.

This time I summarize the busy present. You get an impression of an active family, kids each heading to a different school, Al picking up golf after some downtime and me as central coordinator keeping everything straight. Reading the letters was like hitting Replay on the memory reel.

The letters, in dark blue ink that still shows clearly, make me think. They could be held up as examples of a form of correspondence that has fallen by the wayside.

Letters were a customary means of staying in touch before the advent of internet and cell phones and all the technology that followed. It sounds quaint doesn’t it.

Opening my friend’s letter yesterday contrasts with the quiet at the mailboxes today. It’s not hard to imagine a time when mailboxes disappear from the curbs. Mail delivery won’t be absent for a day but abandoned altogether in lieu of something altogether new.

A quick email let my friend hear of the fun of the envelope and the enclosures. Speedy alternatives to letters (and I’m not even getting to tweet, twitter and texting) would make it appear there’s little need for snail mail, as U.S. mail is referred to by some, either affectionately or in dismay.

It’s my hope that stamped mail, expedited through the nation’s postal system, will continue to define how we stay in touch. I say this against the odds.

I want to believe handwritten correspondence can help guarantee survival of the chivalry of words, threatened by the misspellings and jumbled syntax which have begotten a new language.

Letter writing – the systematic transfer of thoughts to a sheet of paper folded, inserted into an envelope and mailed – is art like any other practiced, perfected undertaking.

Most of us who launch letters into the stream of 21st century living carry out this art form at some lower but nevertheless perfectly adequate level of execution.

Our letters don’t require fancy phrases or the quick apt bon mot. We don’t have to be clever or funny. We only have to be ourselves.

We write about what we see, feel and know. We compose from the reality of the moment. We opine our concerns. We expose our dreams. We shape experience into sharing.

Stamping, addressing and walking the envelope to post it adds the final fillip of delivering a part of ourselves along with the message.

Receiving back my letters struck me as amazingly coincidental. I had just been at the sending end of the same process.

Helping mom houseclean recently I found a bag tagged “Saved Letters.” My name was on it. I could tell it was mom’s handwriting.

I assumed the bag contained some of my weekly letters to the folks. When I opened the bag the handwriting on the envelopes was all different. It wasn’t mine.

The preserved correspondence represented a batch of letters written over a 15-year period. They were from a friend of mine.

An avid biker and traveler, this friend happens also to be a very good writer and one who likes both to send and receive mail.

Each letter was a travelog. It was full of places visited and folks met along the way. You were made to feel you met these people too.

I asked at the time if the letters could be passed on to mom. They were too interesting not to have further readership. Mom would similarly enjoy the bike jaunts, road trip commentary and postcards mailed from Mississippi River and Caribbean cruises.

Coming upon these letters now was sheer joy. I read through them again. I sorted the letters by year and gifted the collection back to my friend.

With grandkids arriving since that time, to now save the letters for, and other family members who would see the history inherent in a parent’s journey, these letters are part of a life story intact. They give my friend the opportunity to delight and inform others well after the bike time is over.

Our friend, signing her name on yesterday’s received note, ruefully ponders the foreign object clasped in her hand. We chuckled, knowing the feeling.

It’s true. None of us are familiar with a pen anymore. It’s unwieldy as we bend fingers around it. Unclenching our fists we set it down.

If the pen is unwieldy the writing paper is nearly impossible. For one thing it’s hard to find. I’ve shopped far and wide looking for simple writing paper.

“To think!” I say. At one time pen and a lined tablet or expensive stationery went together like salt and pepper. They were as mutually paired, and as on hand in the home, as the salt and pepper shakers beside the stove in the kitchen.

My theory is that we should still keep our pen nearby. Regularly write to someone. Always start the letter with the date at the top. Write our signature boldly at the bottom.

These rare and random mailings will prove that something put to paper eventually becomes more significant than something unrecorded.

Our letters and postcards, sent from Texas or Buenos Aires or the small town in the far corner of the state, don’t always go out in the next day’s trash. Some will find their way into someone’s desk or dresser drawer.

There they’ll lie, in either remembered or forgotten state, for perhaps years.Then one day they’ll be discovered. And perhaps be returned.

If they are, be assured. They come with a smile in store for you.

Ro Giencke - 2010