The Mail

I dropped a letter in the mail. There is a feeling of a loss of control just then. I realize that I believe sending something throught he US Mail makes it sacred. Like baptism, the item is immersed, mingled with a million other random items, submerged, later magically emerging in the mailbox of your intended recipient. I worship the mail. It is one of the circulatory systems of our culture. Pieces of mail are added in small bits. My one letter. Two bills you drop in. In tiny pieces. It is like the capillaries. People, workers get these items and collect them into bigger steams, like small veins. Bags and trucks. It merges until huges piles and stacks of mail are somewhere sorted by big machines and people. It is like the heart. Aorta, lub-thub. I can smell it. I can hear the machines. I can see the paper dust collected on the floor of this mass of communication. It puts me in awe just thinking about it. Then the piles get smaller, go on trucks to outlying post offices; get sorted into pigeon holes, bags, getting down to smaller and smaller arteries. Finally carried by a person to an individual mailboxs. It has been dunked into the uncontrollable beyond - a system invented and implemented by humans. I submitted my message--surrendered control of it to the great post office. Trusted other people to work in a complex interrelated system to process and sanctify my letter. It moves through a circulatory system I can only imagine. Reborn. My little red blood cell of life passes through the heart and winds its way to thrill you. Postcards to the world.