Merlyn

  I found a stack of letters at the back of my lingerie drawer the other day. How they got there I have no idea... These particular letters are dear to my heart and I haven't been able to find them for years, much like the person who sent them.
  There are people who come into your life and then when the season is over they drift out. You may have fond memories of the time you spent together, but there was no lasting bond. Then there are those who slip quietly into your life and no matter how brief a connection, they are  indelibly written on your heart. For me Merlyn is one of those people.
 The year was 1982, my husband and I were stationed at Clark Air Base, in the Philippines. We had recently moved on base in preparation for our first born child's arrival, after taking a Maternity Discharge from the Air Force to become a full time mom. It was common for Americans to hire local domestic help, since it was very affordable and housework was much more "involved" without many of the modern conveniences Americans are accustomed to. When living off base, we had hired a housekeeper to clean and to stay at the house while we were at work, to make it less attractive for theft. This arrangement worked well when both my husband and I were working all day, but when I separated from the military and was home all day, I found it a little invasive to have someone in the house with me all the time. Since moving on base eliminated our security concerns, we found our housekeeper other employment and had our new place to ourselves. But the birth of our first child was traumatic and I was left very weak, so when the demands of a new baby and housekeeping started putting stress on my health, we started looking for someone to help out. A neighbor had a housekeeper named Cely, who I knew to be hard working and responsible, so I asked her if she knew anyone who she thought would do a good job. She smiled shyly and said, "yes Mam", and went back to her work. "Yes Mam" could mean yes or no, since often embarrassment about not understanding what was asked led to that kind of polite, but not very helpful answer. So I really didn't know whether I had gotten my question across or not.
  Early the next morning, I found Cely standing at my back door with another young woman. Cely introduced the young woman as her sister Merlyn and said she would, "do good cleaning for me". She turned and left, leaving Merlyn with me on the back porch. Feeling a little awkward since I hadn't really agreed to hire her, I invited her inside and offered her something to eat. She looked uncomfortable and asked, "I clean?", so I showed her where everything was and she went to work. When my husband returned home at the end of the workday, the house was spotless, the was laundry done, (by hand no less), she had picked flowers and arranged them on the table to compliment the delicious banana dessert she had made for a snack for "Sir" when he came home. She was hired.
  I still struggled with having another person in the house all the time since the housekeeper lived with you during the week and went home on weekends. But Merlyn was quiet and unassuming so I eventually adjusted. There were some rules... it was my kitchen... I did the cooking unless otherwise discussed and I took care of the baby, period. I had seen other Americans relegate the care of their children to the maid to the extent that they discovered sometime after they returned home to the States, that their youngest child didn't speak English... no kidding. So we went on, her keeping house and me keeping the baby. I of course allowed her to hold him and play with him but I never left him in her care. Then one day when he was 6 months old, I was trying to trim the baby's nails. He was having fits over the process, so Merlyn asked if she might try.  I said Ok and went downstairs to answer the door. When I returned, I found my son on the floor sound asleep. His bottom in the air and his arms stretched out in front of him . Merlyn had set up a little manicure station in front of him on the floor, towels, bowl of water, cotton swabs and made a game of it. He had been distracted from his tantrum and lulled to sleep, then she quickly and gently clipped his nails... no tears no fuss. From that day forward I knew that he trusted her and felt safe with her, so I started letting her help me with him.
  We worked in the house together, sometime I would teach her to cook American favorites, or she would teach me to cook my Philipino favorites. We took the baby on walks,  I would talk about first aid for small children, what to do if this happens, what not to do if that happens, how to aid if the baby was choking, over and over until I knew she was sick of it, but in time she was a walking encyclopedia of child care info. She was bright as a new copper penny and learned quickly. She was kind and patient and did exactly what I told her where the baby was concerned. So eventually, I felt safe to leave her with the baby. The one thing I had to make sure of was that she was aware and cautious of strangers near the baby. Kidnapping and selling of American babies wasn't uncommon, sometimes even on base. So one day I asked her, what would she do if someone tried to take the baby. She looked at me with flashing eyes and stated "I would die before I would let anything happen to our baby!"

  Merlyn started out as household help, but before long she was a member of the family. She was like my little sister. We really weren't that far apart in age, she was 18, I was in my twenties.  We never once had a cross word, as a matter of fact most of our time was spent smiling and laughing. We loved her and she loved us back.

Merlyn and I giving the baby a bath. circa 1982

  We became part of her family as well. We visited her home, a one room Nipa hut in a village not far from the base, where her mother, father, and other siblings lived. We sat with her at feasts with her family. At one point she told us that her grandparents had invited us to come and visit them in the "province", (wa-a-ay out in the middle of nowhere). We accepted the invitation and traveled for several hours on hardtop, an hour on a dirt road, at least and hour on a cart path and then her grandfather and some other men came and cut a path through the banana trees so that we could park next to their home, so the car would be safe. As it turns out, we were the first "white" people to visit their village since WWII. They treated us with such openness and hospitality, we were fed like kings, which humbled us greatly, knowing how how limited their resources were. The baby developed an ear infection and screamed all night long. The mothers in the village took turns walking with him. The whole village worried over him. There was no doctor to ask for help from so we accepted their local natural remedy, (herb infused warm oil, dropped in his ears), in the morning he was feeling better! We bonded with the whole village and left feeling that we were part of a much larger family.

A portrait of our "family" in Merlyn's Granparent's village. Merlyn and Nathan are in the front, my husband is at the back right and I of course, am behind the camera. Circa 1982

  Our time in the Philippines was drawing to a close and Merlyn was being pressured by her mother to marry a Philipino soldier who could provide well for her. She did not want to marry. She wanted to experience more of life first, but she also told me that she feared his temper. So she applied for a special work visa to go work in Brunei for a Chinese family, who needed a nannie. She was accepted into the work program and we said our tearful good-byes...
   That is when we started writing letters. She had a work contract with a Chinese family, who treated her like a slave. They were cruel to her and she was very unhappy. Many of her letters would begin like this, "Dear Sir, Mam and Nathan, I hope you are well. I miss you.Please don't forget me, especially Nathan " In the upper right hand corner was a notation "11pm in my bed". She would write about her day, her missing us and wanting to be there to see Nathan grow up. She didn't complain, but I knew that she was miserable. She finished her contract and found a different situation in Brunei, with another family. Her sister joined her and life was better.
  Our letters went on from 1983 to late 1989. During part of that time she was back in the Philippines where we tried for almost a year to get her paperwork approved for her to come to live with us in the States while she attended school. We thought that we could help her to have a better life, one where she wouldn't have to work for foreigners as a servant. But the US government denied our request to sponsor her, saying that since she was from a poor family, she must be trying to immigrate and they were denying her immigration. We were all very disappointed. Devastated really... She was very grateful for the efforts but didn't want us to keep trying. She said she had heard about good work to be had in Kuwait. She said that she had some friends that worked there and that she was going to have them find her a job.  I advised against it, saying that I feared for her safety. We offered to pay her way through school in the Philippines, but as before she knew she would be pressed into marriage if she stayed there, so she began the process for a job in Kuwait. She was gone to Kuwait before our next letter arrived. We got a return letter from her sister Cely, in the summer of 1990, saying that Merlyn had gone to Kuwait and would write us when she was settled. We never heard from her again. We tried to contact her family, but were only able to find out that the family no longer lived where we were sending our letters.

  *In August of 1990,  Iraq invaded Kuwait. Many people died in the early days of the attacks, in that number were domestic workers in the homes of the affluent Kuwaiti's. Shortly after the invasion, stories started coming out about the rape and murder of Philipino maids by Iraqi soldiers. Many of those who survived the attacks fled to refugee camps. Here there were people from all over the world, who were living in Kuwait during the attack, and couldn't get out. Of those in the camps many died of sickness or injury, others survived and somehow made it home, still others had no way to get home and remained in Kuwait to continue working in hopes of finding a way home. The Philippine Embassy in 1991 and 1992 was filled with Philipino maids who had fled from their employers due to harsh treatment, physical and mental abuse and rape. The laws of the land do not protect servants employed by their citizens, so little was done to aid them. The Philippine Embassy was not equipped to house and feed these refugees and could only give them a little food and a place to stay. If they were lucky, the women might be deported and get sent back to the Philippines, otherwise they would eventually have to figure out how to save themselves.*

  When I found the stack of letters in my dresser, and opened the thin and now fragile airmail envelopes, waves of memories came flooding back in. Thoughts of our happy little family, of  being young and on an adventure. How we had bonded with this sweet young woman, and knit her forever to our hearts. She opened a window onto another world for us. My heart aches for her struggles in the years after we left, for the rough, unfair treatment she received at the hands of her employers. When I think about her going to Kuwait, and they fact that we never heard from her again, I feel sick to think of what may have become of her....

  Whatever her fate, her letters have left me a reminder of her spirit, her kindness and her courage. And if by some miracle she survived, I hope she is safe and snug, living the happy fulfilling life that she worked and sacrificed to obtain.

January's Last Outgoing Mail

I am on my way to the Post Office with my last batch of outgoing mail for January. I am mailing some letters and a lot of home made post cards. There is more yet to come but it won't go out today! I hope everyone is having a good mail day!

Long Overdue Letters

Handmade Post Cards

During the month of December I had very little in my mailbox to knock off the Winter's chill. December is such a busy month. There are lots of activities and demands on time, so I am not surprised. I am really glad though that January is here and in it's frosty wake, a stack of letters from pen pals and mail art friends!





  Today, I miss my mom, I miss her every day but some days her absence is palpable. She and I were more like best friends than mother and daughter. We would walk down the street sharing secrets and jokes, giggling, and bumping into each other. She was a working mom and a note writer. If she left the house without seeing me, there was a note waiting for me for me when I got up. I usually found an I love you note written on some random slip of paper stuffed in my lunch bag and reminders or to-do lists pinned to my coat or purse. When post-it notes came on the scene, there were colorful sticky notes everywhere. A reminder on the bathroom door about who had bathroom cleanup duty this week, a yellow note stuck to the fridge with a list of leftovers that needed to be eaten, a note stuck to the hampster cage that just said "stinky", point taken....
  Mom also sent cards. She had a stack of cards for every occasion, stamps and her overstuffed address book with her where ever she was. She didn't write letters, she was too busy for that, but she sent off cards to people on a daily basis. It would be just a few words to let you know that she was thinking about you, maybe a comic strip or photo to make you laugh, and  of course, her signature smiley face.
  Birthday cards with money in them came to me every year, even when I was an adult with children of my own. It wasn't a lot of money, usually $5 with a sticky note that said "spoil yourself". It was such a treat that I always tucked it away and kept it seperate from the other cash in my wallet, waiting for just the right thing to spend it on.... A hot and frothy Cappucchino and a few quiet minutes in some lovely little coffe shop, or some pretty stickers that I wouldn't normally spend money on.Whatever it was, I would think about my mom while I enjoyed her gift.
  I was out of the country when she died. It was sudden and I didn't get to say good-bye.  I came home a day or two after she died,  when I got to her house I found a stack of cards next to her chair. She had been writing "thinking of you" cards, and a birthday card  to a four year old friend,  in the card was a $5 bill with a sticky note. I mailed the greeting cards and the birthday card with a notes of my own tucked inside...
  I wonder how many people she touched over the years with her notes and cards, how many peaceful, pleasant moments her little cash gifts supplied? She was a woman who knew how to quietly make the world a better place. I think this year I will carry on where she left off, sending cards out to say "hi" or "I was just thinking about you...", with the hopes of continuing her efforts, and I won't forget the Post-Its!

The Generosity of Strangers

During the year I was in Costa Rica I didn't have a dependable way to  send or receive mail. So for that year I didn't participate in mail art activities. Things like mail art calls and sending mail to friends and strangers in the mail art community were put on hold until I could find a way to get my mail. Unfortunately, this meant that I was out of the loop. Many mailart calls passed me by and friends I had corresponded with for years, had nowhere to send things to, so I wasn't on their lists anymore. This is a sad condition for a diehard mailart and lover of letters to find themselves in!

   Upon my return to the states, even before I was moved into my house or had my art stuff unpacked, I got a POB and started trying to make connections with my old mail art community. Sadly, some of them have disappeared and others have moved on. I was afraid that mailart had suddenly disappeared during my time out of the "real" world, (my Costa Rican life being a departure from reality as I had known it...). But then I came across  the IUOMA social network on Ning, iuoma-network.ning.com, in an internet search on mailart. Eureka!! There in the roll of mail artists from all over the world were the names and addresses of several mailart buddies and much to my joy, a whole lot of other people I hadn't had the pleasure of meeting yet! Be still my beating heart! I was very happy to find out that there are still mail artists in this world and that mailart itself has broadened and deepened in character. There are really some talented and original artists that are participating in filling mailboxes with snail mail goodness!

    After a life time of being on the move, I know that being the new kid on the block can be painful and lonely ...trying to find or make a niche to fit into can be a daunting endeavor. Not so in the mail art community. The basic principles of mail art revolve around reaching out to a bigger world and touching the lives of strangers. I spent hours pouring over the pages of the IUOMA, reconnecting with old friends and making some new ones.   Below are two examples of the generosity of strangers, both of which have recently graced my mail box. Their simple act of sharing something of themselves has done a lot to make me feel like I have come home.

This lovely mail art came from Ahmet Demir. It is four envelopes that when placed in a quad, make the whole picture of an owl. On each envelope there is a part of the owl and a composition of interesting artistamps and actual postage. What an fun idea and so well done!

This is the unfolded outside of the mailart sent by Grant. The background is a page from on old stamp collectors album. The outside is decorated with various stamps that hint at the "otherworldly" contents on the inside of the envelope.

The Altered Fishman is a very unique and fanciful image that Grant designed for his July mailart mail outs.

Thanks to both of you for making my mail box an interesting and happy place!

Letters of Love to Costa Rica

Being without consistent access to the internet during my move back to the States has made me feel disconnected from all my friends and loved ones back in Costa Rica. It was a little strange that we had internet at all where we lived on top of our mountain over looking Volcan Arenal and the lake. I always kind of chuckled to my friends and family that I was sitting amidst the sloths, monkeys, and toucans tapping out "love letters" to my dear ones in the States. It is quite a juxtaposition when you think about it... we had line of sight microwave internet that was very expensive, but worth its weight in gold in the rain forest and no internet access in a place over run with technology...go figure.

I am sitting in the air conditioned Chick-fil-a dining room with piped in music and smiling "helpful" Chick-fil-a employees offering to "refresh my beverage" for the umpteenth time...(gotta love them, they really try to please). But in my mind's eye I am sitting on the front veranda of the cabina with my laptop balanced on my knees in the open air, with the strong Tilawa breeze blowing my hair into knots, the sound of hundreds of birds singing in the rainforest. While holding on to that image, I am trying to compose letters of love and gratefulness to those I left behind on the mountain top. I just don't have the words to speak what is in my heart. Everything is muddy, I feel distracted and sad. Really, I can't write to them anyway, since there is no postal delivery to speak of in the pueblo and no one has internet. But it is my desire to send out into the "ether", my thoughts and hopes for them so that at least I have voiced my heart.

                                           

Samuel,
   Thank you for being a pillar of strength to your family, the pueblo and each of us in the Binford household. You're courage to face each day and find new ways to provide for your family in a severely depressed economy, enduring the pain of injuries left untended for too many years, has helped me to see my own struggles with a different perspective. The memory of your integrity, staunch devotion and loyalty are a benchmark that I use daily.

   I am so grateful for the quiet, unassuming council you were to our son and for being the best friend and hiking partner that my husband has ever had. Their time in Costa Rica was the joyful and enriching time that it was, largely because of you. I can't thank you enough.

Lourdes,

    I smile every time I think of you. Your optomism and humor made my days bright and when I felt low I knew that there was always a kiss on the cheek and a hug waiting for me. Your family is so blessed to have you there to lighten their hearts and carry their burdens on your strong shoulders and I am so blessed that you called me your friend.

Marylis,

    I have tried again and again to put into words what you mean to me... to call you a friend would fall short, to call you a daughter wouldn't hit the mark either. You came into my life as someone to help me around the house and our relationship grew into a precious gem that I hold close to my heart. Hours of sharing thoughts and stories, aided heavily by the Spanish to English/Einglish to Spanish dictionary and a healthy dose of laughter, are some of my favorite memories from our life on the mountain. I think about you daily and miss your sweet smile. When I think of all the people in Costa Rica I hold dear, you are the one it pains me most to live life without. I pray for God to multiply and send back to you, all the kindness and love that you have showered on others. I also hope that someday, we will be able to laugh and share our days together again.

I know that none of these words will reach the people they are meant for, but in speaking them "out loud", I hope the essence of my thoughts may somehow reach them and that the blessing I ask for them will be from my mouth to God's ears.

Mailart in the Mailbox

    I was participating in mailart long before I knew there was such a thing. Decorating the envelope or making my own stationery seemed like a natural extension of my letter writing. Actually, many of my letters were  journaling done on decorated pages and sent to my friends. These creations were not especially well done or of the wonderfully colorful and well designed ilke that you see today, but they were original. I would tuck in different flotsam that I found here and there and put aside to share. Things like Cracker Jack toys, theater tickets, pieces of wrapping paper or ribbon. Just something to be a surprise or flutter out of the envelope when it was opened. In return I would get fat letters full of blow by blow stories about "he said, she said", and some blurry photo they took of themselves. It was wonderful! I would take their tokens, except for the photos which I kept in my scrapbook, and pass them on to someone else that I was writing to.

    Actually, I think that a lot of the mailart things that are practiced today were invented by teenagers. The Add and Pass of today resembles the draw something and pass it along, that teens were always passing around in high school. By the time the note got back to the owner, the drawing would have grown to cover the page and would be a collection of doodles, stickers, quotes and I luv's. The Add and Pass of today would be a xerox of something that was interesting to the sender and the sender's address,(on the back of the page). The originator would then put the page in an envelope, seal it, decorate it and mail it off to someone on their mailart list. The recipient would then add something to the page, maybe an impression from a favorite rubber cut, or a used postage stamp or better yet their newest artistamp. After adding something to the page, the recipient would copy the address of the originator (if they didn't have it already), and add it to their mail artist addy list.Then they would turn the page over and add their mailart moniker and address to the back, stick it in an envelope, decorated it and send it on. The idea being that when it was full, the last person to add something to it would mail it back home to the original sender. That is, of course after making a color copy or scanning it for their own collection!

    I entered the present day world of mail art in an effort to de-stress after then death of my mother. I needed something to do to take my mind off my pain and to give me something to look forward to. I started looking for mail art trades online and found some that didn't seem too involved. I made my post cards and decorated envies that I stuffed with hand made mini envelopes, used postage stamps, flyers from music events, and stickers as well as a handwritten note, poetry or quote. I made my way to the post office and opened a P.O. Box so that my return mail would not be coming to my home address. Once that was accomplished, I mailed off the letters and postcards with my new moniker and Po Box address on them and waited for what seemed like forever for something to appear in my P.O. Box window. Actually, it wasn't that long, since I had chosen a couple of "I'll send you one when you send me one", post card trades and an "write me three letters and I'll write you three back", to start off with. In a week or so I had my very first response, a hand made postcard from a trade and the next day two more postcards from another trade. They were humble beginnings, but worked wonders on my heavy heart.

    As time went on I graduated to mail art calls with a theme and started mailing to the people that were on the documentation lists I received from the calls I participated in. With each mail art call there is usually a promise of documentation of the names and addresses of the participants in the call. Sometimes the documentation came at the end of a call, sometimes periodically during an on going call, and then some documentation was to have your piece of mail art posted to a website, where your art could be seen and you could see what else was sent to the call. So my list of addresses grew exponentially and my mail box almost always had something in it when I checked it.
    After my first year of sending and receiving mailart, I had collected so much mail that I had to start recycling some of it. Not every piece I received was actually "art", many of the things I received were add and passes, regular post cards or slightly decorated envies with goodies inside. These were used to create new pieces and sent on to bring a smile to someone else's postal worker as they stuffed the mail boxes. The ones that were truely pieces of art I have preserved in acid free folders or document protectors with the intention of keeping them long term. The beauty of mail art is that you can use whatever materials you have, recycle, reuse, and send on so that soon you can have a mailbox full of fun and interesting mail to brighten your day.

A Lifetime Love of Letters

    The art of letter writing has been all but lost to us with the advent of e-mail. The daily anticipation of  correspondence waiting for us in the mailbox has been supplanted by the instant gratification of the e-mail box.  Nothing can compare though, with the joy of opening the mailbox and seeing your name handwritten on the front of and envelope. A letter isn't just a piece of paper conveying thoughts and information, it is evidence that someone took time out of a busy day to think of you and connect with you in a tangible way.
    Letters can be held in the hands, read and re-read, saved for years and read again. They are time capsules that hold your personal history safely in their pages. It is conversation at its best, each person gets to have their say, uninterupted. Words can be thought out, editted, and read for clarity before others hear them. The process of letter writing helps to hone the skills of meaningful communication.
   I have had a life long love of letters. Being an Army brat, frequently having to say good-bye to friends and move away, letters helped to ease the loss. I could stay connected with those I left behind. Writing helped me to push back the sense of isolation and receiving a return letter helped me bear the lonliness of being the new kid in town.

    Some of my letters have traveled with me all over the world. The pages may have aged and yellowed around the edges, but every time I open one of them, I can still hear the voice of the author. The words speak to my heart as clearly today as the day they were first opened. Some of the letters represent voices that may no longer speak to me in person, family members who have passed away and friends that I have lost contact with. By opening their missives I can remember them as they were, untouched by age, loss or death.

    I wasn't really aware of how much I depended upon mail until last year. I moved from my homestead of 20 years to a farm at the edge of the rainforest in Costa Rica. Here my address is 600 meters North of the Plaza, Sabalito, Guanacaste, Costa Rica. With an address like that, I'm not too likely to have mail find me, even if there were a mail box for it to be delivered to! The closest P.O.Boxes are located at the back of a motorcylce sales and repair shop, 12 bumpy, curvey, kilometers away in Tileran. We actually have P.O.Box #7,  but for the last 10 months, nothing has been delivered there. It has either been returned undeliverable to the sender, or disappeared without a trace. So, with much reluctance I have resigned myself to e-mail communication.

    E-mail allows for impersonal, one sentence notes, where u replaces you and 2 replaces to, or even worse the forward, of a forward, of a forward. I can't touch the surface an e-mail, smell the faint scent of the cologne the writer was wearing, or relish the small artworks called stamps, that grace the upper right hand corner of the envelope. I miss the comfort of words on paper that I can carry with me from place to place, tied with a ribbon, to remind me of the people I am seperated from by miles and time. I am always happy to have an e-mail, don't get me wrong, some news is better than no news, but it just doesn't feel the same. 

    One bastion of hope for the future of letter writing is mail art. Within the mail art community are many people from diverse backgrounds and cultures who have taken hold of a common thread, the writing, decorating and sending of mail. The unselfish act of sending mail to total strangers opens up a wide world of possibilities for connecting with people and in some cases making lifelong friends. The mail artist will respond to a mail art call posted on the web, or just send a handmade postcard to a random address, with no expectation of a return letter. It is an act of benevolence, a gift, a random act of kindness, and more often than not, is rewarded by a return letter or card. As mail artists all over the world know; you have to send mail to get mail, so why don't you start today? Send a real letter to someone you haven't seen in awhile, or look up mail art calls on the web and choose one to respond to. Wade in, reach out, and enjoy finding little gems with your name handwritten on the envelope mixed in with the bills and junk mail in your mailbox!