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dazedkitsune — Wed, 16 May 2007 03:08:59 CDT

Unsent Letters join us in posting unsent letters ~ hosted by Molli, this site is much more intimate than letter graveyard (and where you will find unsent letters by the kitsune)

lettergraveyard (livejournal community) post letters that have not/cannot be sent

postsecret view secrets on postcards (updated every Sunday)/mail in a secret/buy books of secrets

postcrossing recieve postcards from strangers by mail

Free Hugs Campaign offer free hugs to strangers

February 28, 2007

dazedkitsune — Tue, 15 May 2007 13:46:17 CDT

Here in lonely paradise
I miss you.

Your laughter and
your smiles and
your love changed my life.

I owe you a poem.
I'm working on it.

I love you.
Now.
Always.

January 08, 2007

dazedkitsune — Mon, 08 Jan 2007 22:25:06 CST

It seems an ill advised position sometimes, sharing a spinning rock hurtling around a giant ball of fire with about 6,679,000,000 other human beings. While the velocity of the earth barreling through space is quite admirable, both that and the spinning are rendered mostly to background static in comparison to the presence of those 6,679,000,000 other people. The buzzing cacophony of languages, cultures, religions, and ideas is just dizzying to imagine on a grand scale.

And so, in an entirely understandable attempt to bring all of these ideas and dreams and souls closer together we shut them apart from each other. Today is January 08th, 2007 – this means that we are in National Celebration of Life Month, National Glaucoma Awareness Month, National Learn Spanish Month, and National Poverty Awareness in America Month – in addition to many others (including such perhaps unexpected things as National Be On Purpose Month and National Clean Up Your Computer Month).

We shall take for the purpose of this example National Be On Purpose Month. Not a bad thing – I for one could do with doing more things on purpose. In our Example National Be On Purpose Month will have a day, (obviously) titled National Be On Purpose Day. Also it will have events, classes and seminars designed to help us Be On Purpose – "mindful living" and "how to make your life more purposeful" and the ever popular "saying what you mean to say, speaking purposefully in a chaotic world."

And then February will come, and we will stop Being More Purposeful and will instead move on to Managing Our Time (February is National Time Management Month). All the energy that was a month ago invested in Being On Purpose will shuttle awkwardly into Managing Our Time. There will be National Time Management Day, and a host of time management classes – "twenty recipes that take under twenty minutes" and "making the most of your morning commute."

How much more might be accomplished if we didn't segment everything so much? If instead of having National Be On Purpose Month and National Time Management Month and National Spiritual Health Month (and do we really need a National Return Shopping Carts to the Supermarket Month? Please tell me someone is joking….) we had fewer, broader sustainable interest groups? To begin with there would be many less capital letters in this letter. But more importantly than the consideration of the stress on the shift key, what would spending those 31 days of 365 (366 on a leap year!) thinking about being more on purpose spread out through the year rather than all in a single clump accomplish? Given one class a month (4 classes) having monthly meetings leaves 8 classes to "make up."

Not so difficult as it might seem. Bring together people with a common set of interests, for this example healthcare. Twelve meetings in a year (say the meetings are held every second Tuesday, thus making my math minimal) means that three things would have to coexist. Some options are: National Family Fit Lifestyle Month, National Cervical Cancer Screening Month, National Caffeine Awareness Month, National Healthy Vision Month, and National Mental Health Month. Spending a year working to put together one class per month a group of people could say monitor the effects of cutting caffeine out of their diet, share exercise tips (or even arrange to schedule trips to the gym or to jogging trails together), design fliers to stress the importance of cancer and vision screening (or to arrange funding to sponsor free screenings). Steady experience would allow for much more knowledgeable people working on all levels of a project (how much detail would you remember about a project you worked with a year ago) and a consistent group of people (rather than a new team assembled every month) works better together.

Applied to culture, the segmented approach hits a different and strangely sneaky shaky grey place to stand. Having watched attended the National Cherry Blossom Festival and watched the Taiko drummers doesn't so much give an understanding of Japanese culture as put a sliver of it on display. It's beautiful (and I encourage anyone who could conceivably do it to attend the National Cherry Blossom Festival, I attend it every year that I'm close enough to DC and one my serious regrets is that I'm moving halfway around the world two months before it happens this year and won't be able to come back) but it does not present nearly the same kind of connection as long term exposure, even more subtle exposure, to actual people.

What disturbs me most about the process though is not that a day is not nearly enough time to understand anything, but that fragmenting the experiences of all of these people and dreams makes them more separate from society, not less. And further it makes it seem as though it were acceptable – as though it were okay to think of people who feel or believe or love differently than society as a whole as separate so long as they are offered the chance to be put onstage and listen to them once a year.

Culture and love and faith are far too great (and beautiful) things to try to appreciate in any context like what they are being squeezed into. Fragmenting things into shards small enough to grasp makes them into less than the sum of their parts. I think that is all. No more rambling now.

stories

dazedkitsune — Wed, 06 Dec 2006 21:14:41 CST

add pages for stories here

more interesting text once I've nailed basic formatting

--dazedkitsune

letters

dazedkitsune — Wed, 06 Dec 2006 21:13:15 CST

add pages with letters here

more interesting text when basic editing is over

--dazedkitsune

Home

dazedkitsune — Wed, 06 Dec 2006 21:05:54 CST

welcome to letters from strangers - where it's completely okay to talk to strangers

we're collecting stories, letters, and conversations

I'm updating with more links and madness as quickly as possible as I figure out how this site works.

--dazedkitsune

why is this site here?

dazedkitsune — Wed, 06 Dec 2006 21:03:15 CST

this page was born out of countless random moments on campus, on the subway, and most of all in grocery store lines that clicked with one final experience: standing in line for coffee I was waiting in line with three people, one was a girl who had strep throat and was happily chatting up the woman in line just ahead of me while her mother ordered coffee and called the babysitter (we will call her Julianna), one was her mother who called the babysitter and ordered coffee and was a bit apologetic about her daughter (we will call her Claire), and one was the woman in line just ahead of me (we will call her Melody). with me that makes four people. it should take no more than that to change the world.

so, the cast of characters out of the way, we begin the story. it was about 5:45 on a Tuesday and after picking up a few things in the grocery store I head to get coffee. Julianna was matter-of-factly explaining the story of her day while her mother ordered coffee. as her mother finished that and called the babysitter to apologize for being so late (held up at the doctor) Julianna continued her monologue to the barely responsive (but history will note - attentive) Melody. Eventually Claire finishes the phone call and interrupts Julianna with 'that's way too much information' and shortly takes her away. Melody tells her to feel better soon as she heads to the coffee pick-up counter, Claire pulling her along by the hand.
I smiled and shrugged lightly when Melody met my eyes and said, 'and to think, some children are afraid of strangers.' she smiled and looked down and away, fumbling through her purse. 'some of them need to be taught to be.' it wasn't harsh and judgmental - more than anything I think there was some concern for the fate of a girl who would talk to anyone. a moment later, more to herself than to me, she mumbled 'all I've done today is wait in line.' unable to catch it, I ask what she said, and she looks up to repeat it, followed by a dismissive and almost bitter 'not that you care.' against such sharp denial of her ability to belong to my world at all I had no immediate correct answer. 'I do,' would have been true, but not believable. 'why do you say that?' too likely to lead to snapping. I settled for a more neutral question about how many more lines she would have to wait in. by the time she had ordered her coffee and gone I was decidedly unsettled. three minutes of conversation with a woman who wanted to talk-but didn't think that was an option upset me.

I spent the car ride home talking to my ex-fiancee about that experience and how strange the world was. the amount of disconnection between people is surreal. just before coffee in line to buy groceries I had helped pull the last few items out of a woman's cart for her as she was barely able to reach them from where she was standing and her absolute amazement puzzled me. three days before another woman had apologized for meeting my eyes and looked away as quickly as she could to the floor.

this seems a rather unhealthy state for the world to be in.

so I'm having one of my admittedly few moments of direction to try something new-and making webpages (even so simple as this one) certainly qualifies. I'm not sure if anything will come of it, but I find the thought charming enough.

here goes....