I never receive any good mail anymore. I realized this after receiving a postcard from a great traveling friend - Le Maroc (or Morocco to non-French speakers). In the structured compartments of images on the postcard's front, there was another world foreign, displaying itself in sandy and flowing robe fascination. The more amazing part was flipping the postcard to find a person's handwriting - so rarely seen in mail received today. Magazines and credit card solicitations are too pinpoint perfect to even have a soul (not to mention that computer-generated, emotionless typeset), but in the penstrokes on the back of a postcard, I see imperfection and excitement. More important, I see care and affection in the extra thought required of a friend who happened to remember me by sending a small placard with collage of mosques and white beaches and turbans. Refreshing - and quite an infrequent pleasure - to receive something more than blah mail.
There is a certain energy that winds through the office near happy hour on Friday late afternoon, like the feeling of the last few minutes of school before summer break. The work is done for the week, the bags start to pack with computers and pens and notebooks, and people start to smile again. Sometimes, there is actual laughter in the office.
Outside, the sun is shining in San Francisco today. The bay sparkles something special, if one can avoid the snarled traffic painting the bridges. For me, this is no worry - I walk home, through the Financial District and down Columbus Street through the middle of North Beach. I know I am close to home when I hear the Powell-Taylor cable car clanking down the hill, last stop headed for Fisherman's Wharf at the base of Bay Street.
Now, it is Friday late afternoon; my bag is packing with its own pens and notebooks (soon, computer too). I am smiling as well. I can feel happiness soon to think of the sun at my back walking past Vesuvio ...
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