Letter in Someone Else's Hand

My dear friend, Tiffany, and I have had a unique friendship that has revolved around long distance correspondence. At one point, while both of us were attending FSU, we maintained a drop spot in the campus library. The drop spot was a page in one of the National Geographic books in the periodicals section of the library. The drop spot started when I sent her a regular letter that was nothing but a short note detailing a call number and location of a particular book in the library. This book had another location to go to in the library and so on until she ended up at the proper NatGeo book. In it was a handmade booklet I made for her including things such as a play, a poem, a to do list, and other things written for her. We started leaving our letters to each other in the library to avoid having to use the postal service and thereby save money on postage and time on delivery.

I graduated nearly two years ago now and Tiffany is a senior at FSU. Since graduation, I have traveled to several different states, putting an ever increasing physical distance between us. The drop spot was effectively laid to rest once I graduated and moved away. In an effort to send Tiffany a letter in a new and surprising way, I decided to revive the old drop spot, from Minnesota.

I typed a letter to Tiffany and sent the digital copy to one of my other friends who still lives in Tallahassee and goes to FSU. This friend, Chanel, wrote the letter out by hand, put it in an evelope, and put it in the NatGeo section of the library.

Placement of letter in library

Next, she wrote a note with the specific location and folded it up into a lovely flower and attached it to another piece of paper which was placed within Tiffany's mailbox.

Unfolded flower note

         The first thing Tiffany saw and read when she opened her mailbox.

Receiving a letter in this way achieves an element of surprise not only because it is outside the confines of the postal service but because of it's perceived impossibilty due to our physical distance. Also, because of the feminine handwriting, the true author of the letter is disguised until the valediction. I think this gives the whole concept of receiving a letter a fresh level of excitement. I consider it a success since I was told by Tiffany that it made her day. That is ultimately the goal and hope of any letter I send.

P.S. Thanks to Chanel for taking the photos. And of course for writing and delivering my letter.



This odd piece of mail was part of the Initiative Response Program over at the Letter Writer's Alliance:

http://16sparrows.com/LWA/index.html