A hungry monster perches above my mailbox.
Our blue, knobby-skinned monster showed up on the porch one day. Needing a roost, I wedged him between the mailbox and house in a way that allowed him to wiggle his skinny arms with the right breeze or bump. With one eye bulging out, he eagerly watches for personal mail, his sustenance of choice.
When I check my mailbox for the third time in a day, I realize I must be hungry too. My mailbox monster is shrouded in cobwebs, and I chuckle at myself for expecting mail when I have not been posting it.
I write letters to feel connected to others in our increasingly disconnected world. I write to people as well as objects, places, or impossible addressees like my 8-year-old self. While I do not expect a response from a wooly bear or my grandpa’s cabin, I still feel a forged connection with a recipient through the act of writing.
Authors use the epistolary form in novels and creative nonfiction to get at difficult truths. I, too, often feel I am divulging a secret when writing a letter. It is a tender moment of balancing what I want to share of my life with what a correspondent might like to read. A letter is the product of this vulnerability and ...