note to self:

what happens when dozens of strangers send you letters

I’ve written before (recently) about fear, the way it grabs and tugs me off the edge, faster and farther now that I have kids. Fear in 2025 is a persistent companion. I know this isn’t true only for me. But for me: most days, I feel like a yoyo loosed from its string. I plummet, anticipating the jolt that concludes my fall and begins my ascent back toward a human hand. Instead, I spin through the air untethered.

My past six months have been spent in deep yoga study and practice, going further inward than I maybe ever have. (Have I mentioned this? My four year old says, exasperated, “Mama, you’re always talking about yoga!”) In many ways, the dive has expanded my capacity to live. It’s cut back shrubbery that over the years has grown thick around my heart—rigid beliefs about good and bad, spirituality and selfhood, success, my place in the collective and the strength of my own body mind and soul. Clearing the brush has made space for exploration and wisdom. It’s also removed a protective barrier. Right now, I’m extremely vulnerable.

Right now, I’m also getting lots of letters from strangers. I receive them almost daily, since I launched the community mailbox experiment in late December. When I pitched the project, I thought maybe I’d get ten letters. As of March 12th, more than 200 have been taken from the box; I’ve received nearly 50.

The letters come from across the country, from women and men, young and old. From a Mexican immigrant, a “massage therapist for humans and horses,” a conspiracy theorist, a questioning Christian, a Muslim chef. The letters come mostly from strangers, though a few come from people I know. One, from a dear former colleague signed “your friend, Paul,” made me weep. The strangers also make me weep.

The letters are bright wells of intimacy that go deep deep deep, full of individual and universal stories. Today, I’m sharing some of them with you, because I want to reach out and don’t have words, because the words of strangers have proven both bridge and anchor. In the loud mad world, these letters offer the equivalent of a human hand, the warm reminder that there exists—always and everywhere—reason for hope.

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2-for-1: letters on curiosity (Frank) and dreams (Jonae)

fears of “the other,” a hitchhiking story from a stranger

how I love Niza, who cleverly wrote an extra note about overpriced coffee on the inside of the envelope flap!

struggling with rest from the midst of sorrow, from the haiku platypus

a letter about magic and omens from “a passerby who appreciated this happy distraction”

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Go well and gently, and perhaps send a letter.
xoxa