In the middle of Santa Rosa's Old Courthouse Square, in downtown, there’s the familiar (and much loved by me) outline of a mailbox — the four-sided receptacle on four legs, with an arched top. Only this one is gold-colored.
When I read about this special mailbox, I knew the next time I was in town, I would be mailing something.Placed there by the United States PORTAL Service, a sign nearby explains: “Please submit your questions, grievances and love letters to the past and future here.” If you include a return address, you’ll get a response by standard mail from one of 33 Portal Professionals, who range in age from 3 to 79. If you don’t include a return address, “a cosmic response will be issued.”According to one of the organizers, “A large part of the project — and using a full-size, real mailbox — was to show reverence for the institution of the USPS." The idea also came from the team’s experience sending letters to friends during the pandemic. “A couple weeks would go by, and the whole world would change by the time we would get each other’s letters.”For me, it was a gift having the 'opportunity' to write to someone in the past. I sent a long overdue letter to my mom, dated July, 1986. Putting pen to paper was cathartic. I absolutely love this portal and hope it remains opened for others to creatively correspond.
posted under |
0 comments:
Post a Comment