Where, oh where...?

Where, oh where have we been?

It has been a busy month in the land of the interwebs. I (Christina) have been slowly working my way through emails and figuring out the next steps on my online journey. Believe it or not, there are two more letters that have not made it to this blog. They were slow in coming and then Marisa got slammed with work and kids and a temperamental scanner. She hopes to post them in a matter of days.

There is something I must confess: the lateness of the letters are not all Canada Post's fault (though the disorder is fully their's to blame.) Once the letters began rolling in late, I gave myself slack in mailing. Each letter was written more-or-less around the exact date, often first as a thought jotted in my 'off-line' paper journal. Every letter was also sent in numerical order, but a handful were delivered to the mailbox days late. The strangest thing about the letters arriving in such a random order is the fact that I delivered all of them to the same two post boxes each a block from our house: one with a pick-up time of 9am and the other, 5pm. I am curious to know if the pick-up times are inaccurate and if days get skipped.

Which brings me to a fun bit of news...

Upon my return to Toronto (we have been in B.C. visiting family for the past few weeks while my husband, Michael, galavants around the world for work,) I will be conducting two interviews. The first will be with my friend Rob, a letter carrier, who is going to give me a tour of a Canada Post facility. The second is with Matt Lovett, an efficiency expert with Canada Post.

Stay tuned for these next month.

What I learned in 31 days off-line

There is something about the immediacy, the therapeutic clickity-clack of the typewriter that allows for a different kind of writing. The kind that spills from the heart rather than the head. The kind that’s intended for a single, known reader than an large, unknown audience.

Stepping off-line for 31 days got my hands moving, disciplined me to write every single day with or without a four-month-old and a two-year-old clambering about my knees.

It was a luxury I could afford, being home with the kids and not bound to online work through an out-of-house job. But it was a sacrifice.

I had to say goodbye to my online comforts, my go-to time fillers, google maps and Safari searches.

It made me feel small. It showed me I am small.

It taught me how to trust, that the world keeps on turning without my words, without my likes and dislikes.

It revealed the beauty of unplanned moments, reminding me that chance encounters beat out an online connection any day.

I learned that the smartphone check-ins I make multiple times a day are not actual time savers but time suckers. That if I, as a mama-of-two, want to engage with new ideas, read books, study, create — then I have to save up all of those two minute, one minute, ten minute windows and bank them for things I really want to do. Like write poetry. Phone my Grandma. Skype my sister. Read a book.

I remembered that my children are watching and practicing every move I make. Word and deed. For better or worse.

I discovered a peace, a quietness of mind, that I had been hungering for.

And I learned that snail mail gets people’s attention.