The Mail Carrier

by TAYLOR HARRISON

My husband’s best friend, O, is a mail carrier in Northern England, a fast-talking redhead with a penchant for deeply discounted designer clothing sourced from various outlet stores in Milan. When I first meet O during a visit to the United Kingdom, he thumbs through WhatsApp to show me his latest finds: a shirt in a colorful pattern, a jacket in an unusual texture, and enough pairs of shoes to last two lifetimes. On a separate occasion, he convinces me to purchase a pair of brown leather Paul Smith loafers that make my oversized feet look even longer, telling me that all the women in Italy wear them and that they are the pinnacle of high fashion. I’ll buy them, I say, then list them on eBay one year later as “never worn.”

Everyone knows their mail carrier, my husband tells me one day, explaining that he met an expat in Los Angeles who knew O because he once delivered his mail. I think to myself how I don’t know my own mail carrier, nor have I known those who came before them, except when I was a child, and my mother told me our mail carrier was “far too happy” and that she “wanted what he was on.” 

Before he was a full-time writer, Charles Bukowski was a mail carrier and even wrote a column in his spare time while still being employed by the U.S. Postal Service, according to The Marginalian. I think of how like Bukowski, O is part of a long tradition of people who have found refuge in the postal service, whether on a temporary or permanent basis. They do not let a day job define who they are or stifle their creativity as my friends and I do in our roles in Corporate America; they are first a creative—a clothing collector, a writer—and second, a mail carrier.

A few years after meeting O, I am introduced to a friend of my brother-in-law who occasionally works as a mail carrier, but recently produced a successful indie film and won an award for his efforts. He puts on fingerless gloves as we leave my brother-in-law’s house to brave the cold, and says, “These are from my days with Royal Mail.” 

I think about how when I introduce myself, I tell people I work in communications. I laugh when my husband brings up my creative writing to others, as though it is some meaningless hobby and not one of my main sources of fulfillment. In private, I dedicate hours upon hours to my craft, with weekend mornings spent drafting and finalizing different essays. During the week, I research topics for new pieces and submit my weekend essays to various publications, yet because writing is not my job, I do not consider these activities “work.” This is more than likely to protect my spirit given the amount of rejection that follows these efforts.

Maybe, just maybe, rejection proves that writing is a meaningless pursuit, and nothing I do actually matters because it is all in good fun. Besides, I add for good measure, I have a real job in Corporate America. I realize now that this is not how I truly feel. I attach more meaning to my writing than my corporate job, and I’m sure many other creatives who are not working in their field of choice share a similar sentiment. It takes minimal effort to type up an email, whereas I pore over the order of a sentence within one of my pieces for hours on end, rearranging the words until I command + Z to the original formulation.

My husband and I go for our nightly walk with our cocker spaniel, Nelson, and come across an interesting scene. Two USPS vehicles are meeting in an empty parking lot after dark, a man and a woman parked side-by-side. Perhaps the postal service is the secret to a fruitful life. The man and the woman do not exit their vehicles, instead chatting through the open sliding door. I imagine that this is a clandestine meeting, and they are either involved in an illicit affair or their work contract does not allow for relationships in the workplace. Then another thought: are they first, lovers, second, post office workers? Do their titles even come into the equation, or are their jobs happenstance? Would they have burned for one another in every life? 

I decide I will take a cue from those in the postal service when I return home. I am a writer who just happens to work in communications, where I also write, but not how I want to. It is impossible for me to consider my writing and corporate life as bifurcated entities, but alas, is one defined by their job in life and in death, or their vocation? I cannot recall my grandfather’s obituary noting that he was a car painter upon his emigration from Mexico to the United States; instead, it said he was a kind and thoughtful man who touched many lives through his time volunteering at his local library. When I die, I cannot imagine what my obituary will say; maybe it will note that I was a pleasant woman who did her job and nothing more. She clocked in on time and delivered on expectations. She wrote many emails, and only some of them had typos. Maybe it will state that I tried my best to live a creative life that was saddled by my commitment to creating value for stakeholders so that I could pay for groceries and put tires on my car. I know that none of that is true; our creative lives will not go with us to the grave. I say the words aloud: I am a writer. A real one. In life and in death, all that will be remembered is the passion that guided our actions throughout our existence.

When I check my mailbox the following day, I think of the individual who delivered my mail: I’ve never fully seen her but judging by her silhouette as she passes my home, I surmise that she is a woman. I wonder what circumstances led her to the postal service, and if she has a pile of short stories stacked neatly on her desk, awaiting her edits for when she returns, or if she has a wall full of paintings, a half-finished canvas in the center of her bedroom and colorful paint dried thick beneath her fingernails. The way to the creative life is through the mailbox: the fingerprints we leave on the lives of others that betray who we truly are.