Amy Lu's View

There are many things that I love and appreciate about being in a play.

Learning lines is not one of them. 

People often say how hard it is to learn and memorize as they get older. I don’t really have a sense of my memory getting worse (I may just be in denial) but I do think my focus and concentration have gone to hell.

I don’t know if it’s because of aging, or the interwebs and smartphones, or living through the Time of Covid, or just stress in general, or the cumulative effect of consuming too much alcohol or too many processed snacks, but I think I get distracted more easily than I used to. 

I had REALLY good intentions today of being very successful and productive with memorizing my lines for a play that I’m in that opens in just a smidge over a month (https://dreamlandarts.com/the-brothers-grimm-spectaculathon/). 

However, instead of actually learning my lines, I spent most of my time panicking about how I needed to learn my lines. 

My inner list of obsessive thoughts went something like this: 

• OMG I have so many lines to learn, I will never learn all these lines.
• I want more snacks.
• Is it too early to have a drink?
• OMG I have so many lines to learn, I will never learn all these lines.
• Why do I keep eating snacks?
• I have to go to the bathroom. 
• I’m too hot in the sunroom and I need to change my clothes.
• Is it time to feed StanLee?
• I must focus on learning these lines!
• Where’s my phone? Do I have any messages?
• I want to blog, but I must learn lines first! 
• But if I change my clothes, I’ll be cold when I’m in the other rooms of the house. 
• Are the neighbors having a backyard party? That seems more fun than memorizing lines.
• Where’s my phone? Do I have any emails?
• OMG I have so many lines to learn, I will never learn all these lines.
• What can I blog about?
• Why won’t StanLee stop barking?
• Why won’t the neighbor dogs stop barking?
• Can the neighbors hear me reciting lines? If so, what in world must they think I’m doing?
• Where’s my phone? What’s happened on Facebook?
• OMG I haven’t learned any lines and I’ve been “working” on them all day.
• I can NOT have any more snacks.
• I’m definitely having a drink.

Not surprisingly, all these thoughts did not result in an accomplished day of mastering my script. It does have some new snack splatters on it, though, which I guess is at least a sign of effort (Chad’s scripts always look pristine at the end of a show where mine are a mangled mess filled with weird and disgusting stains). 

So, I still have a long way to go before I conquer my script…but I do have some favorite lines that I’ve learned (although no promises that I know where they fit in the show). Yes, as a very transparent attempt at creating some interest in this show and getting some butts in the theater seats, here are some of my most intriguing lines:

• Why does my cologne smell like gravy?
• There are no crab people!
• I’m extreme!
• Everyone knows babies come from The Devil.
• These curves are tight and streamlined like a racing yacht owned by a rich Russian oligarch. 
• I was about eleven when I figured out I didn’t have a Fairy Godmother. 

They’re even more intriguing out of context, right? So now, of course, you want to come see our show and see how they fit in the production–or maybe I’ll just randomly say them. 

Especially if I don’t do more with my script than just getting food and beverage debris on it. 

We don’t have power. 

I should probably not be using up my phone’s battery life to blog. 

But what else can I do without power, besides worrying about how long it will be before the groceries I just bought today go bad?

I do feel very lucky that my food status is my biggest concern and that we’re safe–no tornadoes or storm damage to contend with. 

I also feel lucky that I made supper before we lost power. 

But I just realized that if we don’t have power by the morning I can’t make coffee!! No, I can’t go there…

We did entertain ourselves by listening to an episode of our beloved Too Beautiful Too Live podcast on Chad’s phone. But it was hard to concentrate…how could I just sit and listen?! (So I also drank booze and ate snacks. Needed to keep my hands busy but need way more light to latch hook by).

We also attempted to talk…but it was tricky not to end up fighting about the difference between a tornado WATCH vs WARNING (or more accurately that I should be respected for knowing the difference–as someone who’s scared of storms, I feel I’ve earned this area of expertise).

So we’re giving up–going to bed early and hoping to get some sleep without any white noise. Hoping that StanLee won’t need to go out and pee in two hours after my disastrous attempt to take him outside that only succeeded in us crouching in a puddle and getting soaked.

One of the catch phrases of TBTL is “Power Out”–as in that’s a cool and awesome way to end something. I don’t feel awesome right now, and as the temperature rises and we don’t have fans, I’ll be less and less cool. But I can say I have literally used the phrase accurately (it’s a bit of a pet peeve for me when people misuse “literally” to just mean “really.”

And I literally need to wrap this post up so I have enough power to keep checking Facebook for a while.

I was surprised. Maybe even a little shocked.

Our friend, and minister, Laura, had just said Chad and I were playful.

I certainly wasn’t offended–I wish I was more playful–but I don’t think I’m very playful. 

I’m thinking about play now because Laura explored it recently in a sermon, and is encouraging us all to think about the spiritual dimensions of play. 

I never did follow up with Laura about why she thinks we’re playful, but I’m guessing it’s because we are into a lot of pop culture that’s intended for children. 

It could also be because we literally play a lot–at least we play instruments, and we are in theater plays, so we play act. 

If I don’t think that makes me playful, what does it mean to be playful? According to vocabulary.com, “playful” describes “someone who likes to have fun and doesn’t take things too seriously.” 

Well, I do like to have fun, but I don’t think I’m all that good at it, because my tendency to overthink things usually gets in the way. I can be too busy thinking “Is this fun? Am I having fun? Are other people having fun?” to actually have fun. 

Although it may not be obvious to others (except for Chad and our pets) I actually DO take many things pretty seriously, but perhaps not the always the same things others take seriously. 

I’m usually too goal-oriented, too preoccupied with thinking “what’s the point of this?” to be playful. I’m not living in the present. I’m not very open to experiencing something for its own sake. I may seem playful because I’m typically not concerned with looking silly or because I don’t limit myself to interests that are “age-appropriate,” but that often doesn’t translate to that experience of engagement and experimentation that I see as play. 

I may look playful, I definitely want to be more playful…how can I be more playful?

Happily, I’ve had a couple of coffee house music experiences recently that have felt surprisingly playful that I think can be good examples I can learn from. With the last two songs I performed, I practiced, I was prepared, and at the last moment had the opportunity  to play the songs with other people. 

I was tempted to say “No, I’m not prepared for this…” but instead I said “Yes.” I was open…to experimenting, to collaborating, to doing my best while still accepting it could all go awry. 

Both song performances turned out to be better and more interesting than if I had performed solo. And yeah, there were some goofy, silly moments of mistakes, but I think I, and my awesome collaborators, and the audience, had more fun. 

Years and years ago, I said something to Chad about having fun and he replied, “I don’t know what fun is.” I gave, and continue, to give him a hard time about that, but I think I’m the one who is really confused by what fun is. I may have the demeanor of a muppet and wear otter print dresses, but Chad is more capable of presence, which I think is key to play and having fun. 

Having a goal to be more playful seems counterproductive, but I am going to seek to be more present and more open. And I will have many engaging opportunities to explore what that means as we start rehearsals for an upcoming play, “The Brothers Grimm Spectaculathon,” more info at: https://www.act-mn.org/. (YES, see how I work in that marketing!)

Oh, I am going to have to work hard to be prepared for this play. But work and effort aren’t antithetical to play–they can lay the foundation for making play more spontaneous. 

I’m going to hug Munson (my stuffed one-armed bear, thanks to StanLee), keep drinking some wine, and ponder this.

Ah, spring. Yes, it’s April, and the time for flowers and brightly-colored dresses, eggs and hats and Peeps and holidays of renewals. 

And snow. Sigh. 

Meteorological bitterness aside, most people’s religious and spiritual calendars and inclinations agree this is a time of renewal. 

But renewal of what? 

I think because I’m in the Library Biz, at least still nominally, my thoughts immediately go to library checkout renewals. As in, “Your items have been renewed and you get to have them for another three weeks.”

My thoughts go to renewal as an extension…just like they did over two years ago when I blogged about renewal: https://amyluedtke.wordpress.com/2020/08/19/again-and-again/. (Yes, I recently wrote that I would no longer worry about repeating content, but I did check and discovered that I have posted about “renewal” before.) But my thoughts are a little different now. 

Now I’m not thinking so much about the possibilities of extension and continuation and how those might feel like promise, but if I really want or need all those opportunities for renewal.

I don’t have anything specific in mind. I’m just thinking about how I have automatic renewals for so many things: magazine subscriptions, our public radio membership, coffee purchases. It’s no secret that marketers love to get us to subscribe to things. Once we’ve done that, it’s more than likely that inertia will keep us continuing as members/subscribers (not to mention how difficult corporations make it to cancel a subscription).   

So while I’m anxiously, sometimes desperately, waiting for the rejuvenating energy that the renewal of spring brings, maybe I can take some time to make sure not all my renewals are automatic or unthinking. Do I need, or even still want, all the magazines and services and products I subscribe to? 

More than likely, the answer is “yes”–I love my Broadcast Coffee from Seattle and all the streaming entertainment services we have. I love the convenience of automatic renewals and would be really annoyed if I had to sign up for everything again. But still, it’s good to take a little time to see if I can declutter my life in some small ways. Maybe the subscription to “Wired” magazine can go…

More importantly, there are probably less obvious automatic renewals in my life that I should ponder and evaluate–thoughts, habits, relationships that I just keep continuing, without reflecting on if they still serve me well. 

This isn’t a way to announce that I’m ending any relationships. It’s been almost 17 years since Chad and I had a public vow renewal, and we’re successfully renewing and extending our marriage on a daily basis, in a combination of unthinking and intentional ways. We’ve chosen to “Choose again,” (to quote our understanding of a central tenet in one of our favorite book series, “The Hyperion” by Dan Simmons), and acknowledge that we’re continuously making a choice.

Coffee is NOT a choice, though. It’s a necessity. Without coffee–not just the caffeine, but everything about it–my brain wouldn’t be able to produce any intentional thoughts.

Sometimes questions make me strangely prickly. 

I’m not sure why–I’m not a particularly private person (much to Chad’s dismay). I like talking about myself (much to Chad’s dismay). I’m not in the witness protection program. 

So it’s surprising that I didn’t get snippy when the very nice cashier at the Como Observatory recently asked me, “Where are you going to wear that?” 

I wasn’t snippy but I was flustered–Where WAS I going to wear that? 

The “that” in question was a sloth dress. Yes, a sloth dress. No, not a dress for sloths, but a dress for adult humans made with a sloth print material. (Please see the copious selfies I’ve included). 

I was immediately drawn to the dress when I spotted it. I don’t have any particular affinity with or connection to sloths (although we did see them in Costa Rica and I have an adorable stuffed sloth to commemorate that vacation which I diligently try to keep StanLee from eating) but I think most of us can agree that sloth iconography rocks. 

The dress was one of my favorites styles, made of soft fabric, machine washable, and it had pockets! The length looked good, and it seemed like it would work for our ambiguous Minnesota springs and falls. 

Yes, I considered my purchase of this dress carefully. I have an abundance of clothes, and I’m trying hard to be more thoughtful these days before adding to my collection that I already don’t have space for. I even walked around the Conservatory one more time while I pondered it. 

Did I need this dress? No. But was it a dress I could use, that was different from what I already have, that would remind me of a unique time and place? Yes. And come on, Sloths. 

So I shouldn’t have been thrown when the cashier asked me where I planned to wear the dress. I had considered that very question, and determined that it was a flexible, casual, comfortable dress that would be appropriate in many situations and environments. 

And yet, hearing the question out loud from someone else, totally discombobulated me. How to articulate to another human, in a coherent and yet succinct way, that I almost never leave my house? And while I consider working from home to be a tremendous gift, did I need to go into that? How could I explain, should I explain, that I intended to mainly wear the dress at home?

And that is probably why I find questions so challenging sometimes. Not because I’m overly defensive (or not just that) but because I overthink social interactions. I want to have the perfect answer that is informative, insightful, interesting, entertaining, accurate, and brief. 

All I needed to say was something like “Oh, I’ll wear it to work and church.” True, even if both these “places” are frequently online. Instead, I babbled about working from home which led to an even more awkward exchange about my job. 

At the risk of using the word “ironic” incorrectly (something I find quite annoying when others do it), it does seem at least a tad ironic that buying a dress featuring sloths, a popular symbol of relaxation (not saying that is zoologically accurate, I have no idea about the mental health of sloths) ended up causing me some anxiety. (Ironic, perhaps, but not unexpected). 

Now that I own the dress, and have worn the dress, I feel confident about its purpose and acquisition. My debut of the dress was to work–via an online meeting–and it received a compliment right away. #WorkWardrobeWin. 

I’m no longer questioning my sloth dress or its awesomeness, but I do have some lingering questions from my Como Observatory visit. Most notably, “How have I lived this long without ever having heard of peanut butter fruit? Does it really taste like peanut butter? If so, does it have fewer calories?”

This week I successfully played a drum groove that I’ve been working on learning since the Before Times–so over two years. 

This could be an inspiring story of perseverance. Or, it could be a rather sad story of lackadaisicalness. 

I think it’s somewhere in-between. 

I have NOT been working on this groove steadily for the last two years, but I have kept coming back to it–whenever I got around to it. I wasn’t on a mission, working determinedly toward a goal, but yet, I didn’t give up. 

There isn’t a special reason why I decided to try and learn this groove (enticingly entitled “Rock Beat #20.”) At some point, and the details are murky, I decided to stretch myself a bit when it came to my drumming. So of course, I turned to the internet, and came across the Drumeo website. I think I chose this lesson from instructor Jared Falk because it focused on sixteenth notes. 

This groove didn’t require physically strenuously drumming (I wasn’t pushed to the limit like the woman in the recent deodorant commercial). It wasn’t hard because of what I was trying to play, but because of what I was trying to NOT play.

This groove was hard for me because my typical drumming is so ingrained. I don’t mix things up very much. I generally play the same basic rock beat with any rock song. It may not be exciting, but it works, at least for our garage band purposes. It’s not flashy, but my role is to support the band, right? I’m pretty sure that at least two out of my three fellow bandmates don’t notice that my drumming repertoire is pretty limited (as long as I keep the beat and don’t pass out or spontaneously combust at the drumset). 

Yes, to be Captain Obvious once again, this is a spot-on metaphor for life: breaking out of our habits, and NOT doing something we’re used to doing, can be as hard as, if not harder, than doing something new. 

I also got in my head a bit about learning this groove and that definitely made it harder. I relatively quickly learned Beats 11-19 (I started with 11) and then, #20 loomed out of the page at me. “Okay, here it is, the groove I CAN NOT PLAY.” And then, of course, I couldn’t play it.

I still have a long way to go before I can play this groove comfortably, without thinking. (I also don’t like thinking that the difficulty level for this groove is ONLY 2, according to Drumeo. I’m not sure what the scale is…2/5? Heaven forbid, 2/10? But this doesn’t say a lot for my drumming prowess, or ego). I definitely don’t feel it’s accurate to call this a victory in the annals of drumming or learning or dedication, but I do think it’s a small win to celebrate, and I’m all about the small wins. 

I don’t know if I will ever be able to play this groove with a band as part of a song–unless I can get someone to write a song specifically to make use of this. Surely a songwriter out there must be inspired by the number 20? 

I’m the one who moved my cheese. (Yes, cleverly trying to reference the 1998 bestseller that I’ve never read–and don’t plan to. Wikipedia describes it as a “motivational business fable,” definitely not calling to me). 

I take full responsibility, but even though it’s not a mystery, I’m not pleased with the result of my cheese relocation. I recently took a tub of perfectly good low-fat feta cheese and in the process of making salads for supper, mistakenly moved it from the refrigerator to the cupboard. 

Of course, when I discovered this the next morning, I had to move my cheese again–to the compost. Sigh. 

I did this within a week of another cheese move gone awry, when I moved an unopened block of my beloved truffle cheddar cheese from the basement refrigerator to the counter, where I let it sit out for a couple of days. That cheese also ended up in the compost. 

These cheese mishaps were not only sad, but disconcerting. What is going on that I can’t keep my cheese properly refrigerated? Am I that distracted, that flustered, that scattered?

Yes, yes I am (and the wine I’m usually drinking while making supper and moving cheese here and there definitely doesn’t help). Not constantly, not all the time, but enough that it’s sometimes frustrating and/or entertaining. 

I often describe my thoughts and attention as scattered–as in scatterbrained. My mind flits from one idea or task to the next, and I don’t stay focused. My emotions often feel scattered, too–they’re contradictory and I don’t know what to feel. I’m scatterhearted (can I take credit for inventing this word?) 

“Scattered” also applies to my physical possessions. My clothes, dishes, papers, latch hook yarn, are all frequently strewn about various rooms and surfaces. 

I definitely experienced scatteredness in the Before Times, and I don’t know if the last two years has made it worse, but it certainly hasn’t made it better. 

When I saw the title of today’s sermon was “The Scattered Church,” I immediately thought it would be about how our church is disorganized and unfocused (which we, as all human entities, sometimes are.) It wasn’t–”scattered” was used in contrast to “gathered” and explored how we live our faith in times when we’re together as a congregation and in times when we’re out in the world. 

I usually think of “focused” as the opposite to “scattered,” but I’m intrigued by thinking about “gathered” instead of focused. And maybe I’m not looking for an opposite to scattered, but a companion idea. Maybe being scattered isn’t always a negative. 

Scattered can mean mess and chaos, but also freedom and possibility. Are there times when it’s good to have a myriad of thoughts and ideas and feelings and experiences, and throw them out to the world, especially if I can carefully collect them when needed? 

“When needed”–that may be the key. If I could, I’d add that to Ecclesiastes 3:1-8 (and the song “Turn, Turn, Turn,”): For everything there is a season,…a time to scatter (and be scattered) and a time to gather (and be gathered). 

So I think I’ll try to be a little more open to being scattered, and see where it leads me. I’ll try to be more intentional about what I gather, too.

EXCEPT when it comes to cheese. I need to get my cheese protocols in order. Wasting cheese is a sin (I’m from Wisconsin, after all). 

Happy World Theater Day, especially to all the awesome theater-loving people that I have worked on shows with and those who have seen our shows.

This year it feels particularly right to observe World Theater Day, as this year marks the 15th anniversary of when I got involved with community theater with our church’s production of “Our Town.” Okay, technically, it was church theater, but church is a community, and clearly the key point is that it’s not professional theater. 

I love theater. I love seeing it, and I especially love being in it and acting. 

Yes, I love acting, and…it really does a number on my self esteem. I could lovingly chronicle and explore all my acting related self-doubts and anxieties, but that would be pretty boring (which may not stop me in the future). They basically boil down to “Am I any good at this?” and “Will I ever get to this again?” (Okay, I will also give a shout out to the “Why do I always move like a muppet?” denunciation.)

I am definitely experiencing the “Will I ever get to act again?” worry/fear/terror at the moment. I want and need to acknowledge that, and hopefully, being honest and putting it out there will make the anxiety a little less scary. 

But I don’t want to think about my acting future right now, or my fears about it (or the lack thereof). I DO want to stop and reflect on the past 15 years, and really savor how blessed I’ve been, all the amazing experiences I’ve had, and the wonderful people I’ve met, and all the things I’ve learned–about acting and life–and yes, my accomplishments (and tell those voices that say “But yeah, you could have done better!” to f#$k off. I can be rude to my inner critics, right?)

What I have learned about acting and/or myself as an actor:

• Acting is very physical. You don’t just use your mouth to say lines–it’s a whole body endeavor (which is tricky for someone who doesn’t have much body awareness and their default way of moving is to flail like a muppet.)
• Acting isn’t just standing/sitting/flailing around waiting for your turn to talk. You need to listen to the other actors, and react and respond to them. 
• You shouldn’t just learn your lines and only know your cues (see above about waiting for your turn to talk). Your whole performance will be much more effective if you are familiar with the whole play and what is happening in every scene. (I’m NOT advocating diagramming every scene like my talented friend and fellow actor, Pat, although I applaud that this works for him). You especially need to know what the other characters are trying to do in the scenes you’re in, in case someone changes or drops a line, so that you can carry on. 
• Blocking. Oh, blocking. As someone who doesn’t know how they move through space in real life, and gets easily bored by details, I am very spacy about blocking. I could go here, I could go there…and yet, I might get really annoyed and confused if another actor changes their blocking. 
• Emotions. Wow, those are tough. In acting, and real life. My very shallow understanding of the central question inspired by the technique of  “Method Acting” (getting new attention because of the recent book, “The Method” by Isaac Butler, which I, of course, have not read) is do actors have to actually feel what the their characters feel, or just act like they do? I never fully feel what my characters feel–but I don’t think I usually fully feel what I feel. My real Amy emotions are mitigated and controlled by my internal critic  gatekeeper–and shaped by my inner monologue. And crying? Yikes, crying–again, I rarely cry in real life, much less on stage, #GermanMidWesternLutheranByBirth, so does my acting suffer because of that?

Hmmm, this didn’t turn into the celebration of the last 15 years that I was planning on, but getting to do something for 15 years that has caused me to think and ponder and struggle and grow, is definitely something to feel thankful for. 

And no matter how insecure, or vain, I may be–there is no question that I have met incredible people these last fifteen years because of theater. I’m pretty sure I’ve said that before, but this is something I’m okay with being repetitive about. People who are talented, and hard-working, and patient, and funny, and brave, and silly, and dedicated, and supportive. 

Maybe what I’ve really learned, and what I really want to celebrate, is how miraculous it is that people can come together and create theater. And not just the actors and the playwrights and the directors and the crew–but the audience. 

Most importantly the audience. In person, or virtual, you really are the most important piece of the puzzle–and not just those of you who give me positive feedback. 

I just had a blog fail.

Okay, “fail” is probably a little dramatic, but I definitely committed a blog blunder. 

What, you may be wondering, did I do? Did I publish something insensitive that might get me in trouble with people I work with, or worse yet, something that would get me in trouble with Chad?

No, but I did blog about a topic I’ve already blogged about. And I don’t mean I just revisited familiar content territory– I knowingly and unapologetically often write about running, drinking, StanLee, drumming, etc., so that’s just a given (I only have so many life experiences to draw on). 

I usually do a search of my old blog posts to make sure that I’m not writing about exactly the same thing, or if I am, that I at least include an acknowledgement that I’m writing about something again. I often even include links back to previous posts. My librarian mojo shines through and I cite myself. 

This was a blunder because I unknowingly blogged about a very specific topic–letter writing–that I wrote about just a few months ago. On March 16 of this year (my last blog post before this,) I published the post “Boxful of Letters” and on September 4, 2021, I published “Wait a Minute, Mr./Ms./Mx. Postperson.” (Is it possible to plagiarize myself?) 

Okay, these posts were actually six months apart, but I don’t blog all that often, so six months isn’t very long in blog time. AND I not only wrote about the same topic, but the same incident–going through old letters I found while cleaning out some of our junk. AND…this is the worst part…I used the exact same photo to illustrate both posts.

If it wasn’t for this photo faux pas, I might just be able to shrug this off without mention. (No, I’m NOT going to post the photo again!) Afterall, letter writing is a big topic, and the format of the posts are definitely different, with the most recent cleverly written in the style of a letter. That one is part of my “Frog and Toad Challenge” and the older one isn’t. 

And good news/bad news–no one seemed to notice (which yes, probably means very few people are reading my blog). I even got more comments (as in any comments) when I shared my recent blog post on Facebook. So maybe the second exploration of this topic was more in engaging in some way, so worth a revisit? 

I do, after all, contradict myself in these posts, in one saying “Maybe people feel safer or bolder when expressing themselves in a letter, as it is a solitary experience–you can’t see the other person’s reactions and they can’t interrupt you,” and in the other, “Maybe we can be more vulnerable in letters?” Or perhaps that’s just two different ways of exploring the same idea, which is actually kind of cool. I admit, I like seeing how September 2021 Amy and March 2022 Amy compare. Maybe this blogging about the same thing on a six month cycle could be a worthy intentional practice?

But as I clearly did not intend to post about letter-writing twice in one year, I feel I need to own my mistake and examine it for any life lessons. Why did I do this? Is my memory that bad? Was I/am I drinking that much? Am I so frazzled and disorganized that I just don’t know what I’m doing?

Or…worse yet…HAVE I JUST RUN OUT OF ANYTHING TO BLOG ABOUT?

These are probably all contributing factors, and they are all rather disconcerting, but I am obviously worried about not having anything to blog about. 

Which is another reason I decided to blog about this blog embarrassment–I can’t pass up on content! (Yes, stealing this idea from the podcast TBTL in case anyone recognizes this). How meta is blogging about how my lack of content leads to more blog post content!

As long as I’m willing to blog about the silly things I do and goofy mistakes I make, I’ll never run out of things to blog about. 

And I think I’m just going to stop worrying about content recycling–afterall, if I can’t remember or keep track of what I write about, it’s not that likely that anyone else will be able to (or care to). Please consider this a blanket disclaimer that from here on anything you read in my blog is something I’ve probably already written about. Perhaps it will just be presented in a wittier or more inightful way.

Recycling, even content recycling, is good for the environment, right?

Dear Toad, 

How are you? I am fine. 

I’m writing you a letter because I am inspired by the Frog and Toad story “The Letter.” I have a goal of writing a blog post based on every one of the Frog and Toad stories. This is my 14th post in the challenge!

You may wonder what a blog post is. Basically, it’s a letter posted on the internet to anyone who might read it, not necessarily to a specific person. 

You may also wonder what the internet is (a bunch of tubes?) If you do know what the internet is, then you may wonder how a letter is different than an email. Mostly it’s different because you have to have a stamp to send a letter, and it can take a few days to arrive. So you have to be more patient when communicating via a letter, and sometimes more organized. 

Letters are also often handwritten, rather than typed, which is really awesome because handwriting is a very tangible expression of a person. Having a handwritten letter from someone can help you feel closer to them, even if you are separated by distance and time. 

I am also inspired to write this blog post because February was International Letter Writing Month. Yes, I had hoped to write this post in February because now it is mid-March, but you seem like an amphibian who isn’t too strict about scheduling. 

I don’t think many people write and send letters anymore because there are so many more communication options – not only email but text and messaging and so many others. But I am old enough (or maybe I should say SO old) that I’ve lived a fair amount of life during a time when letters were a pretty important way to communicate. 

Letters were very important to me when I was twenty years old (don’t know if that sounds old to an amphibian but it sounds very young to a middle aged lady) and I was an exchange student in Winchester, England. It was my very first time away from home for any significant amount of time, and I definitely got homesick, and I especially missed my mom and my boyfriend, Chad. 

Luckily, they both wrote to me, and my mom even wrote to me every day! My mom’s letters were often just fluffy recounts of her day, and she didn’t have to write very much because she had large handwriting so could quickly fill up paper, but I loved getting them in the mail (getting mail was very exciting!) and they made me feel loved. 

Now that my mom is dead I really treasure them. (Sorry if it feels harsh to you, Toad, to say “dead” but I really don’t like the euphemism “passed away.”) Actually, I should be brave some time (and a little drunk) and read them again. Why do I need to be brave (and a little drunk)? Because re-reading those letters will probably create a lot of feels. I’ve only re-read them once in the twenty years since she died and it was a beautiful experience, but very intense and made me miss her more deeply than I do on a normal basis. 

I also received (and presumably sent) letters around that same time period when I was “at home” (either at college or at my parents). I found those letters this summer when I was attempting to de-clutter and was quite surprised – I had no idea that I had received so many letters back then! I assume that I wrote a similar amount, and I even found some drafts that I had written and never sent. I looked at all those letters and they brought back several memories – good, interesting, and just weird. I’d also forgotten how close some of my friendships were then (thanks for all those letters, Jennifer!)

I’ll confess, Toad, that I even threw some of those letters away (I was trying to de-clutter, after all), including one by a friend that still irritated me, even thirtyish years later. Actually, I think it annoyed me more now – my friend was offering “feedback” on a column I had written in our college newspaper and his critique included the term “femi-nazi.” I have no problem working up moral outrage so there was no need to hang on to that letter.

I’ve even had some pen pals in my lifetime! When I was a teenager, I somehow got connected with a fellow U2 fan, Sheri, and we wrote to each other about how much we loved Bono and about our pets. And my brother got me a pen pal, one of his fellow soldiers who was happy to get mail, even from someone’s little sister.

Today I don’t write that many letters (as we’ve talked about, there is texting and emailing to use instead) but I do frequently send letters and cards to my friend Pat, and she faithfully sends letters and cards to me. I love getting mail, and I love getting Pat’s correspondence, and I love how thoughtful and comprehensive her letters are. Pat shares everything from her philosophical insights to her memories to recounts of her daily activities and interesting things she’s read and watched. (My correspondence is much more haphazard and shallow but Pat deals with my limitations). 

I think that may be the best thing about letters (and cards and notes), Toad – how intimate they are. Maybe it’s just a preference or prejudice of a middle aged lady, but letters feel so personal, even when they are just recaps of mundane life. Maybe there is something about the physical act of writing and reading it, or the timing of letters–you just can’t get immediate feedback, so that affects what you write. 

I really didn’t start to understand Chad’s feelings for me until we exchanged letters. 

Maybe we can be more vulnerable in letters? (Even if we’re still boring and weird).

Oh my, Toad, this is a long letter/blog post. It is not nearly as succinct or eloquent as the letter Frog wrote to you:

“Dear Toad, I am glad that you are my best friend.

Your Best Friend, Frog.”

I’ll try to emulate your letter from Frog. 

“Dear Blog Reader, I am glad that you are my best blog reader.

Your best blogger, Amy.”