Did you think that I forgot about this?
No way! I spent the entire month of April writing nice but incredibly awkward letters. I averaged one per day. I wrote letters to 14 authors, 6 celebrities, 5 organizations, 3 politicians and 2 podcasts teams.
On a grading
scale from A through F, how would you rate this? Did you accomplish your goal?
I’m going to give it a C.
This was an exercise in kindness without reciprocity, without an agenda. When you say something kind or compliment a stranger, you are at least going to get a smile back. Sending letters felt different. It's sending missives into the wide universe with no idea whether anyone would actually read the message. In a lot of ways it was very unfullfilling. On the plus side, it made me think a lot about who and what I admire, and why, as well as forcing me to put that into words.
I’m going to give it a C.
This was an exercise in kindness without reciprocity, without an agenda. When you say something kind or compliment a stranger, you are at least going to get a smile back. Sending letters felt different. It's sending missives into the wide universe with no idea whether anyone would actually read the message. In a lot of ways it was very unfullfilling. On the plus side, it made me think a lot about who and what I admire, and why, as well as forcing me to put that into words.
I have currently received three responses. 2 stiff form letters from St. Louis Bread Company and Aldi, and the amazing response above from Margaret Atwood's people.
Did you do this each and every day?
Not every day but I did send 30 letters. Well, 29. I have one international one that I still need to send but it's written and sitting in my purse.
Will you do anything different moving forward?
This is a strange side effect: I'm going to encourage my daughter to write to the people that she looks up to. It felt very powerful to put my admiration into words. I wish I had written a lot of those authors when their works said the right thing to me at the right time in my life. I do believe that a hand-written letter is so much more powerful and weighty than an email, and I would like her (and my son, when he gets older) to experience that.
Did you do this each and every day?
Not every day but I did send 30 letters. Well, 29. I have one international one that I still need to send but it's written and sitting in my purse.
Will you do anything different moving forward?
This is a strange side effect: I'm going to encourage my daughter to write to the people that she looks up to. It felt very powerful to put my admiration into words. I wish I had written a lot of those authors when their works said the right thing to me at the right time in my life. I do believe that a hand-written letter is so much more powerful and weighty than an email, and I would like her (and my son, when he gets older) to experience that.
So, now what? I'm more than a week into May, and I'll give you a hint: Hola! Estoy aprendiendo español. I'm taking the month of May one Spanish lesson at a time, once a day.
