I love a post office.
It’s a bit of a joke in my family: “Sarahbeth loves a post office, bless her heart.”
They say it the way southerners might talk about someone with an illness,
“Well he caught the gout and it’s got him down, you know how it does him…”
And today’s writing is probably going to leave you thinking when it comes to all things Post, maybe I am just a few berries shy of a bushel.
But hey, they tell ya to keep things interesting and human, and this will be, well, at least that…
The post office {cue my coy and just a tad flirtatious eyebrow wagging}:
Its orderly envelopes, the artistic stamp opportunities, the tape and packaging (brown paper even), all these accoutrements lined up and waiting to help us wrap up something with care, those boxy little trucks full up with Christmas packages including my dearly departed Nan’s famous Christmas fruitcake.
“Do you know how much it cost to ship your brother his fruitcake?” I can still hear her say.
-Well yeah Nana, the thing weighed as much as a cement block and could feed a small regiment or one half starved undergrad for a month at exam term, speaking from personal experience, but I digress.
How could you not love the efficiency and purpose of the postman and your nana’s fruitcake -the helpfulness and possibility?
I’ve been known to gasp in reverie at the most mundane, red brick, squat, tiny, nondescript, provincial, small town, average joe, little-old-post-office.
Gracia is normally driving.
Gracia normally thinks a dog or child has run into the road.
Gracia normally says, “What?!” & then: “Oh, a post office.”
Cuts the eye to the woman in passenger seat. Keeps driving.
During the pandemic I bought into the panic that the post office was going under. Now there was good reason to worry about this, the post office has some strict rules that govern its funding in the old US of A.
I decided the best thing to do about my worry that we were about to lose all public post offices to Fedex or UPS or DHL or some other completely yuck private
entities without routine mailtrucks was to support my most beloved public institution the way I knew best. I would buy all the stamps in the land, not a bad plan, but I sort of lost all reason.
Aside: I kind of lose all reason to some hair brained design idea about every 5 years. The last time was over accidental tall semi wonky cross things I was convinced were brilliant design ribbon posts for our good (Jewish) friend’s wedding in the front field ….yes crosses as in Jesus, that’s kind of how they looked. I wasn’t going for a Jesus look -I just refused to see it for what it was for at least 4 years, because that’s how long I left up my ribbon jebus posts. We looked like it was possibly a weird wonky easter morning on the farm for about that long …I was told, I could not be swayed. It was comical, go on, laugh. So so sorry Janey…
Back to the stamps:
I really had my heart set on these really beautiful rendered strawberry stamps that only came in a 3¢ stamp option (And only in a really big roll of them at that).
What might a human need with dozens of 3¢ stamps you might ask?
Well the fug if I know, but I had to have them and every time that obnoxious roll gets in the way of our teeny mail and post center hovering over our kitchen counter I can feel my beloved bug-nerd-world-saving-penny-pinching spouse shoot me a look. You know the one…. That stab you in the back Woman, why must you be this unreasonable and unyielding? look That: God I truly must love you look. That How much ******* money did you spend on stamps we don’t need when we could have bought stamps we could use?!? look.
And I cringe the cringe of the ashamed and artistic-but-at-times-wildly-unreasonable.
Listen I bought lots of stamps we could use too, we’ve just, well, used them…
Yesterday I read this poem by Jess Janz and I wanted to share her closing line with you:
“I will be thinking about the inefficiency of our caring: how it made us strange and beautiful and worth fighting for - this imperfect species with so much that we got wrong. How we would pick the most beautiful flowers on someone’s hardest day and go off our usual route home to drop them off on their porch, even though they’d only survive a week in the vase on the table.”
Something Real -the antidote
Here we are living our lives perpetually online.
I have made such wildly beautiful connections with you all, but I know both in my heart and from reading multiple articles, ironically all online, studies from experts and therapists with things like statistics -that together online makes us feel more cut off and alone.
I am living my life online.
I make my living teaching beautiful soulful women online.
The way I reach them to teach them is by inspiring them online.
I remind them class is coming up online.
I update my website and get my class tools together online.
Through the strange signals and tip tapping I fall ever more away from the tangible daily and reside, you guessed it, cerebrally online.
I make less with my actual hands and talk more about thinking about making instead.
I haven’t sat for coffee with my dearest friend Melissa. We haven’t held hands through our hard moments in person.
I haven’t gotten to know my buddy Emily, who is about to knit me the world’s most glorious sweater by getting coffee and commiserating the sleepless child rearing nights together at each other’s houses, and I haven’t walked Susie’s gardens, but they are my friends -and-
also
the virtual is starting to wear on me.
Both of these things are true.
And you? Is it this way for you too?
The epic migraine I’ve been enduring has pulled me further online and away from my family.
Bright light and loud noise send my pain through the roof.
Parenting is almost impossible.
Yesterday my mom bought me moldable ear plugs and when the noises were finally bearable I burst out sobbing to be able to be near my loved ones again.
Nearness & Realness are the antidotes I think.
Maybe it’s Susie’s fault really, she started sending me seeds and I started sending her little letters of appreciation.
In our large tiny atlas I want to try something, my version of the antidote through the magic of the post.
I have begun already, but I want to throw more pebbles in the pond.
I want to send tiny tangible letters.
Little: ‘Hello, I am real, so are you. I care and I care about you.’s
Drop a comment to me in this post and I’ll send you a short real antidote-to-the-virtual card to you.
& don’t worry - it won’t be epic, in letter form I am brief -my ADHD is a powerful thing.
These cards will be my Jess Janz vase of flowers picked just for you, driven out of my way, because it’s the inefficiency of our caring that makes us so damn worth saving -I think she’s onto something important there and this is how I want to care for you in a way that’s real, in a way that you can touch.
& you should know already that the little letter will absolutely be covered in at least 3 superfluous strawberry stamps for tremendously no reason whatsoever other than my particular touch of madness….1
Other real-ish things about to happen:
The Crone Calls
The Crone Calls are happening & I am so excited about the badass woman who has agreed to kick it off. We going to have the best time and we’re going to have a poignant time and we’re going to have a powerfully fun time.
I’m excited to talk with y’all about what it means to be potent women stepping into our magical crone selves these days.
Does crone mean old and haggard?
Hell no, not around here it doesn’t. It means wise and ancient like the hawthorn or the oak or the bending whipping willow. It means sexy, vivacious and powerful like the ocean and mysterious and enthralling like the moon, and a tad bit naughty - let’s be honest about that.
Love to y’all,
Sarahbeth
P.S. The Young Riders was a short lived ‘90s tv show about a Pony Xpress mail delivery service in the wild west, probably the origin story of my romantic appreciation for all things post right down to the mailbox. I spent an inordinate amount of time trying to decide which one of those boys (and lesbian/ trans character = foreshadowing) I’d marry when I was 9. Gosh I loved each and every one of them and their ardor for the mail that must be delivered through snow, sleet, gunfire, and duststorm! Clearly it formed me. I think the mail is noble and the mailbox sexy. I think it’s a reach out to one another in a way that matters. You’re gonna want my card, because my stationary game is lit.
I will send out 12 little strawberry madness care letters and see how my hand cramps are doing from there. This may become a paid subscriber feature but for now - I want to send realness out to you. Hit me up. Tell me what aches or what ails. Or tell me what’s funny or say nothing at all but your name -and I’ll write to you.
There’s nothing quite like a handwritten letter, especially with a lovely stamp on it 🍓
I grew up with a PO Box and a postmaster who knew me by name. I can remember the way the building smelled. The linoleum was cold on my bare feet. That little box w the red/gold lettering and the brass knob to turn left then right held SO many letters over my 18 years there. I found my HS scrapbook when we moved here last year. Envelope after envelope taped to each page. Thank you for such a sweet memory of that space for me💚💌