Tuesday, December 7, 2010

Christmas Cards

Mail isn’t delivered on Tybee unless you pay off elected officials or have some type of dirt on them for blackmail. Sure there are people with mailboxes and they get their mail delivered but it is surely another sign of corrupt government.

Most of us have to drive to the Post Office and retrieve our mail from boxes. It is a gathering place I suppose and a lot of people retrieve their mail every day at 10:00 when there is no parking whatsoever. But folks lean on the tables inside and chat or sit inside their car, open their mail and spend twenty minutes reading it. It’s federal property so no body can do anything about it

I get my mail every week or so. That way the bad news is normally offset by good news and it seems that there is something very Zen and Buddhist about doing it that way.

Yesterday I had to leave the island anyway, and the Post Office is about a mile from where I live and it really is a pain to go that far just to get mail, so I stopped. Sure enough the parking lot was full and people were mulling around everywhere both inside and out. Many people sat in their cars reading their mail. My friend Kenny had set up a grill and was selling hot dogs.

“In this economy, you gotta do what you gotta do,” he said as I walked passed. Tybee’s just not like a lot of places.

It took me twenty minutes to pry my mail out of the box and another ten to convince Kenny that I didn’t want a hot dog. Then I was in Savannah for things that had to be done and then lunch with Leigh who used to work with me many years ago.

Back home I dumped all of the mail on the big table because it wouldn’t have fit on the small one. Then I ignored it for several hours. Goddess took a couple of pieces and chewed them up and I didn’t care.

Finally I fixed a drink and stood over the mail. A heavy sigh left my chest. I used a verb followed by a pronoun. The pronoun was “me”.

Then my Type-A personality disorder took control and I arranged the mail into piles; Bills, Professional correspondence, Personal stuff, and Junk. I threw the junk away without opening it. The professional correspondence was laid in order beside the computer so that I could respond to it … whenever that happens. The bills were stacked beside the computer too.

Then it was time for the personal stuff. “Tis’ the Season” so there were a lot of Christmas Cards. I stared at how they were addressed and they fell into two categories: “Rev. and Mrs.” or “Micheal”.

It gave me pause. There are those who know and there are those who don’t; those who care and those who are oblivious.

I left the mail with my drink in hand and stood staring at Fran’s thousand shades of green. It is cold outside and while I hate it, Goddess loves it wearing her golden fur coat. She is lying on the beloved back deck and the wind blows her hair. Brown leaves cover the wood which somehow transforms the deck into a different kind of beauty.

For as long as I can remember, Christmas was this incredible flurry of things that I had to do. There were events or parties every night. The Chamber of Commerce is gearing up for the political season so there were lunches and breakfast meetings. At Union Mission there were holiday gifts to plan for a thousand people. And for about a three week period once each year it seemed everyone in the universe cares about the poor.

Then there were all of those non-poor who had nothing to do on Christmas so they wanted to do it for the poor; to volunteer to cook or serve or sing. Or parents who were trying to raise their kids right by showing them that there are people who have nothing on Christmas day while they have every single thing that they asked for.

Fran’s thousand shades of green danced in the wind. Goddess came inside and nudged my leg wanting me to scratch her butt. A Christmas carol played over XM radio.

I walked to the table and got all of the Christmas cards.

And I threw them away.