Mailbox provides exotic mystery
Houston Chronicle, August 2003
By William Dylan Powell

This time was different. Usually my trips to the mailbox are a mindless, mechanical routine: the logo on my phone bill, the bogus $20,000 check from a nearby car dealership, postcards with the faces of missing kids I haven't seen. But this time, my mailbox held a handwritten letter.

Handwritten.

Not a form letter from somebody promising to pass the savings on to me or a store-bought greeting card from a friend or relative whose actions were born more of social expectations than a spontaneous need for expression. This was an actual handwritten letter.

And it was an exotic one, too. It wasn't addressed to me (making it even more exotic) but to the person living here previously. Off-white and a little larger than your standard American envelope, its rainbow of stamps read: "España." Delicate geometries of ink peppered the orange, green, blue and red frames whose perforated edges profiled a man in his 60s in a tailored suit. He was staring off into space with a look that was half privilege and half post-traumatic stress disorder.

Opposite the political fresco-stamps was a badge of armorial insignia that would shame the Queen of England. Replete with a shield, stars, rearing lion, a castle, clouds and a decisively pretentious pattern of anchors, it was the sort of thing you expected to see guarding the door of a bulletproof limousine or fired onto the helmet of an Old World horseman. There was only a single English word on the entire envelope, almost hidden at the bottom: "personal."

Of course, I opened it.

It was written in peacock-blue ink with a fountain pen. Not letting the fact that I can't actually read Spanish stop me, I read the whole thing. Twice. Fishing for the Latin torsos of my own language, I tried to piece together some kind of vague meaning. No luck. But its elegance, fine paper, penmanship and -- most of all -- the fact that someone sacrificed an hour or two to create it were truly touching.

I leaned against the mailbox, staring at the envelope's impressive heraldry. My own family crest (I saw it once on a refrigerator magnet in a London tourist shop) bears only a single roaring lion -- obviously screaming in frustration of being literate only in English. As I examined it, I suddenly realized why I was so moved by this missive: I had not written a letter in years.

Today it seems like handwritten letters are becoming the exclusive domain of those with idle time -- or those actually serving time. But they were once the lifeblood of communication. Even when I was in college, the instant gratification of e-mail had not yet beaten the aesthetic letter into a pulp. I spent my junior year of college in London, and the handwritten letter came in handy overseas.

Every few weeks, I sat in my white boxers and athletic socks carefully balancing typing paper on the kitchen table of our South Kensington flat. Amid hollow bottles of vodka, like-new books on European economics and an ashtray filled beyond capacity, I scribbled. Every few minutes, one of my flatmates would walk by to scavenge a leftover samosa or bottle from the fridge, reminding me of something I'd left out. And by the time I'd finished my session, not only had I gotten my point across, but also whatever stress I'd had was history.

I have in front of me a sagging blue shoe box of old letters. I must confess, my dispatches from London are nothing to write home about. Case in point, my insightful comments: "This place is different from Texas" and "You just can't get good Mexican food here." But I read them now with zero sense of familiarity, having forgotten all but a sliver of those experiences. And as my eyes explore them now, I relive each one -- my cheeks filling with blood and my brain flooding with ghost faces. If I had simply called or sent an e-mail, these memories might be gone forever.

I'd forgotten how much I love to get real mail: fingers ripping the envelope, triggering flashbacks of torn holiday wrapping paper. A moment of mystery! You never know what someone is going to say to you when they're free from time constraints and able to sharpen their thoughts to perfection. Not to mention the goodies you just can't put in an e-mail or phone call: the fuchsia lipstick print, the blond lock of hair, the $100 check.

Holding a letter from someone is like shaking hands and palm reading. Stamp selection. Folds and wrinkles. Handwriting. The color and clarity of the ink. The paper itself. Each is a window into the author's life. Even the smell! I have never received an e-mail that smells of tangerines or Marilyn Miglin or prison-purchased cigarettes.

The cost of a stamp, ever increasing as it is, is far less expensive than the tax of the unexpressed and unrecorded life. I should have forwarded the Spanish letter to its rightful owner, but I didn't. I put it in the kitchen drawer where I keep the instruction manuals to our microwave, entertainment center and bread machine. Every once in a while I take it out and run my fingers across the dark, romantic ink. But most of the time, I forget it's even there.

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