I was at the post office, elf-like, with a bag full of parcels to mail. There were a few people waiting in line, so I picked up some flat-rate boxes and started cramming things into them as best I could, addressing them merrily. One of the parcels was the wrong size for a flat-rate box, but I had expected as much and had already addressed it and secured the festive paper with what was probably way too much packing tape. By the time I had finished my little project, the lineup had disappeared, and so I sauntered up to the counter.

When I moved here I very much grieved the loss of my neighbourhood, where it felt like everyone knew my name, or at least my face. I felt both nameless and faceless as I moved about my business in my new city. But now, two plus years later, I feel like I’m pretty well-known around town, and by “around town,” I mean at the library and the grocery store and, importantly for this story, at the post office.

I was thinking a lot about mail this week as I finally read The Correspondent, which I will talk about shortly, but just know that I loved it excessively. Longtime readers might remember when I found an entire moving box full of letters: mostly from my grandma, but also many from various pen pals I kept over the years. Old fashioned letters really do tell a story, and although I send postcards and holiday cards and birthday cards and, sadly, sympathy cards with much regularity, I haven’t sent an actual letter since my grandma died almost twenty-six years ago. I do, however, exchange epistle-length emails with one of my former senior yoga students, which feel correspondence-like. Writing this blog, and reading those of my friends, also feels very correspondence-adjacent.

There’s nothing quite like getting mail, though, which is why I am a regular at the post office. I take a lot of time to choose pretty stamps – only available for Canadian addresses, so sorry, non-Canadian friends! – and I’m always excited when there is something new. Last month there were Blue Rodeo stamps, BLUE RODEO. May I remind you of the 2008 Plates of Gold Gala?

In case you’re not up on your Canadiana, that is Jim Cuddy, singer of Blue Rodeo and the person who is referred to as “my boyfriend” in this house.

What I am saying is that I have really gotten to know the women who work at the post office, and as I ambled up to the counter looking like a cheerful version of the Grinch, balancing boxes and bags in my arms, the employee on duty apologized for not helping me with the flat-rate boxes. I don’t know how she possibly could have helped me shove gifts into them, but I appreciated the sentiment, and when she asked if I was sending any dangerous goods, I mentioned that one of the parcels contained a puzzle for my nine-year-old niece. This spurred a long and detailed conversation about puzzles, and how we liked them, and then she suddenly turned away and disappeared, only to return with a puzzle box lid and a small piece of said puzzle. This in turn spurred another long and detailed conversation, this time about the puzzle that was currently being constructed in the post office break room and how difficult it was and how we both preferred puzzles that are vignettes rather than difficult landscapes, of which this was one.

The employee looked around to ensure no one else was in the office, and then she gestured to me to come with her. We went together into the back office, where I could see not only the puzzle-in-progress, but I could also see the walls which were completely lined with completed puzzles. It was like A Beautiful Mind, but with puzzles.

And at that moment, I thought this is what life is all about. Live your life with arms wide open! I didn’t wake up that morning thinking I would tour around the back of a post office, talking about different brands of puzzle glue, but here I was. The things that can happen when you don’t live a rushed existence! As we went back to the counter so that I could finish the actual job that I came to do, an elderly woman burst into the post office, and burst is really not an exaggeration. I would not say that she was the reason for all those “abuse will not be tolerated” signs, but she was quite snappish. She wanted to know WHEN letters would be delivered again.

When indeed. For those of you not in the know of the inner workings of Canada Post, earlier this fall there was a brief strike which became rotating strikes, and so the mail has been delivered, albeit slightly slower, since early November. The employee said as much to the woman, who was in disbelief.

I wondered if she had checked her mailbox at any time over the past six weeks. I pictured it exploding as she turned the key to her little box. I imagined that there would be an incredible backlog of, at the very least, flyers and bills. Perhaps there would even be a holiday card in there. And then I thought, maybe she had checked it, and maybe no one was sending her anything at all. Maybe she had a “no flyers” sign, maybe all her bills were paid online, maybe she had no one to send her a holiday card. Maybe she was just a cantankerous old lady who needed a lesson on the True Meaning of Christmas and who would, in time, be the recipient of much festive mail and become a beloved member of the community.

Well. I was letting my imagination get the better of me. I was creating an entire character arc in my mind and a whole story in which she would be serving Christmas dinner at a soup kitchen and would become attached to a plucky young orphan who would teach her all about LOVE, and meanwhile, the woman merely huffed and stormed off, presumably to open up her mailbox at last to find that Kellogg’s products were on sale at the Save On.

Weekly Reading

At the urging of my son, I need to issue a correction. There is another book which spurred actual tears once, and that is The Godfather. The son in question was a year old at the time, and I was gigantically pregnant with my second, reading The Godfather in the waiting room of the doctor’s office. I came across the part where the Don is asking the undertaker to do his best to prepare Sonny’s body for viewing. “I don’t want his mother to see him this way…look at how they massacred my boy.” I burst into tears. I have reread The Godfather several times over the past twenty years and never again have I cried, so I think it was more of a hormonal response than a literary one. Anyway, this story has been family lore lo these many years, and I cannot believe I forgot to mention it. Correction issued!

Great Big Beautiful Life. I had heard some criticism about this book, being a bit different from the author’s usual – but I liked this story about two writers competing to get access to and write the memoir of a mysterious, reclusive celebrity. There was a story within a story, which I like, and a twist which I didn’t see coming. A nice diversion of a book. 

Favourite Daughter. The author of this book is from Calgary, love to see that! I also loved seeing little snippets of my hometown sprinkled throughout this story of two women who discover that they are half-sisters after their father passes away – and after they discover he made a wild decision with regards to his rather significant estate. It made me think that two people can view and experience a person very differently or, relatedly, that one person can be very different to different people. Mainly, this book is about addiction and alcoholism, with detailed descriptions of withdrawal, recovery, and relapses. You all know I feel about such subjects, and for that reason, as well as a couple of others, this didn’t work for me.

The Correspondent. I have been waiting for months to read this book, and wow, was it worth the wait! To be honest, I was a bit worried, as this book has generated a lot of buzz. I was concerned that this would be another situation like Remarkably Bright Creatures or Where The Crawdads Sing where everyone in the world but me was in love with it. But I need not have worried. This is an extremely Nicole-coded book! What an incredible piece of writing. This epistolary novel showcases the extraordinary life of an ordinary woman which, if you’ve been following along with me for any amount of time, is my absolute favourite. It doesn’t shy away from showing deep regrets, bad mistakes, failures, and general cantankerousness. But it also shows the power of the written word and of communication, the joys of relationships of all kinds, and the beauty of living a life with arms wide open and with acceptance and love. I wish I could read this book all over again for the first time, but I know I will reread it in the future and be just as delighted, moved, and warmed by it.

If you are a blogger, do you ever go back and read old posts? The one I linked to above, about my 2018 discovery of all my own correspondence, was very fun to read. I do like looking back to see what my life was like back then, as I am at the point where I can barely remember what happened last week, let alone in years past. Maybe we are all Sybil from The Correspondent, in that respect. I mean, hopefully not in terms of all the tragedy, but the spirit is there. And speaking of spirit, just a reminder that I have an Ask Me Anything form, if you have any questions or topics you would like to see explored. And on that note, I hope you are all having a lovely December so far. xo