It wasn’t the first store.  It was one of many.  The young clerk was sincere.  Sweet.  Polite.  Ernest.  Stymied.  So was the store manager to whom he was speaking on his headset.  But when he asked me if I could describe to them exactly what I meant by “letter writing stationery,” I became rather alarmed.  So … it had come to this.  Here was the final disappearance of personal handwritten letters.  We no longer as a society have the basic tools for writing them.  The very paper upon which we used to write them was gone from the shelves – even from the language of our young.

There was a time when every corner drugstore carried boxes of letter-writing stationery – complete with matching envelopes.  Typically in sets of 50 or 100 each.  I remember the feel of the paper, rich and textured, thick like linen, watermarked, sometimes with deckle edges (I liked those best).  And you had your choice from an array of colors.  Starting at just $3.99 a box.  They were the perfect Mother’s Day gift, or a young person’s first “grown up” present. 

My mother had been a dedicated letter writer.  Every week for as long as she was alive, every one of my siblings and I (unless we were physically under the same roof with her) received a letter.  As did many others, family and friends alike.  Every week, there it was in the mail box:  a square blue envelope, addressed in blue fountain pen ink.  And inside was a personal handwritten letter on matching blue stationery.  And it was full of news and gossip, a great deal of nothing, and yet everything it needed to say.  Just the glimpse of her small, cramped handwriting spoke to me as if she were reading the letter out loud in her own voice.  I still miss it achingly.  And so I decided to pick up the practice of letter writing myself.  

The only paper I had on hand for my first letter was old and fusty, a faded cream, browning with age around the edges – but I used it anyway.  I found a pen with brown ink and it smelled rather odd, but it went with the paper so I used it anyway, too.

But then it seemed to me that if I were going to continue to write my longhand pen-and-ink correspondence on paper, I must buy some proper letter-writing stationery.  And so it began.  I kept trying to explain to young helpful sales people what I was in search of.  I drew diagrams and made hand gestures.  And, occasionally, someone did know what I was looking for.  But the best they could do was show me bound journals or packages of folded notecards or single-sheet cardstock for quick notes.  After a fruitless search of the internet as well (a counterintuitive effort, I know) I had to accept that the days of such papers (at everyday prices) are, indeed, over.  I’ve had to settle for 8.5 X 11 stock (which I could just trim down to my size).  But I will continue to look for those matching square envelopes.  And ink that doesn’t smell so regretful.

Because, more than ever, I am convinced that we desperately need to write and receive real letters.  Authentic, handwritten letters.  Long and lovingly written on pages and pages of real paper.  We need to feel the scrape of the pen across the texture of the page.  To think about and see the individual words as they emerge.  Our recipients should know when something we started to say suddenly took a turn, or when we searched for a better way to tell them something, and so things got scratched out and replaced.   They should see where our fingers couldn’t keep up, and we went back to fill in the gaps.  We should be able to experience the thickness of the letter under our touch, folded into an envelope that doesn’t look like yet another piece of throwaway mail.  Some of those square blue envelopes from my mother, with their blue ink and matching blue pages inside, may still be found at the backs of drawers or tucked between the pages of old books. 

Consider, too, our next generations – the ones who are missing out on the gift of receiving a distinctive envelope in the mail every week for most of their lives, from someone who loves them out loud, with all the care and intimacy of handcrafted thoughts and feelings.  And just the sight of it brings a smile to their hearts.  And it can be saved and reread and pressed inside favorite books.  

So here’s the assignment:  Let’s bring it all back.  Let’s – all of us – write letters, by hand, in script, on good paper.  Let’s make them restock the shelves.  Perhaps we could succeed in time for Christmas.  In time for Mother’s Day.  We can reclaim the art … the message … the generosity … the tradition … before it is lost. 

By my count, Daphne the dog has buried that pitiful old chew-bone at least five times – just within the last 15 minutes.  Twice in the same spot.  Now, she’s dug it up again and is carrying it around in her mouth, looking for another location in which to keep it safe.  Even when she’s made the hole deep and wide, and covered it over with piles of dirt, and backed away apparently satisfied, she can’t keep her eyes off of it – the place where it waits.  She paces past it, circles it.  She lies down across the yard and gazes at it.  Eventually, she can’t resist.  She digs it up once more.

Now, she’s disappeared from my view.  But I can smell fresh-turned soil nearby.  So I know she’s preparing a new burial site for it, where it may lie-in-state for another few minutes.  Only to be retrieved and worried over yet again.  And here she comes … the filthy, degraded, mud-covered, mouth-soaked, pathetic old leather-like bone hanging from the corner of her jaw like a well-chewed cigar.  And she skulks around the edges of the yard seeking out a new spot in which to keep and savor it.

I actually gave her that tired old chew-bone myself – knowing she’d likely do this with it.  It was the same the last time she’d had one in her possession.  And today she was bored and restless and looking for something to do, and I suspected this would occupy her, give her an activity, a self-defined purpose, something to focus on, then to obsess over, eventually to agonize about … until she chose to let it go.  It’s become a proven process, some sort of ingrained ritual.

I suspect we are all inclined to do this very same thing at times.  We find, create, uncover, define, seek out – or are given – something with which to over-occupy ourselves.  Something to obsess about, to hold fast in our minds and imaginations.  Something to agonize over.  We captivate ourselves with it to the point of uncovering and revisiting it again and again in our thoughts and our actions – to exhaustion.  Perhaps it is as ingrained in our humanity as it is with other creatures.  Perhaps it is also a choice.  

Because right over there … just on the other side of this self-made reality, just for the seeking and finding … is a place called “stillness.”  More than silence, and not simple idleness, stillness is where all the good things live.  

Whereas, “to hold still” is just an annoying verb – something we’re required to do as children in church or while getting our hair cut; to “keep still” is merely a handy thing to say when someone else wants to talk.  But this thing called “stillness” – true, real, authentic stillness – is a place.  A brilliant, breathtaking, breath-giving place.  

Stillness involves our physical being as well as our senses.  Stillness is our own breath inside us and a breeze sighing against our skin.  Stillness is where we hear Debussy’s music between the notes, where stars fall and bubbles float and water lilies glide across paintings by Monet.  It rustles along the ground and quivers across the tops of trees.  It is butterfly wing shadows, and a bee suspended in sun motes.  It’s the spin of a leaf, the smoothness of stone, the chill of a single drop of rain; it’s moonlight carrying echoes of foxes and the scent of jasmine on its back.  Stillness is where small voices call to us with great truth.

I suspect this place called stillness may be easiest to visit alone and at night.  Although our worry-bones seem to call out for obsession and agony most when we’re alone in the dark, as well.  So perhaps it’s all a matter of where we choose to lie down.  Or perhaps it’s where we decide to secure our reality.

Daphne has now opted to give her chew-bone back to me for safekeeping.  She is trusting me to place it out of sight, out of scent, out of reach, out of worry.  Now she is stretched out on soft grass, eyes dozing, in dappled sun.  Resting, breathing, dreaming, being.  Perhaps she is listening to small voices.  I suspect she has, in her infinite dog wisdom, chosen to lie down in the peace of a place called stillness.  

The elder woman walking toward me was alone.  She was swathed in a full-length, vintage style, black fur coat.  The coat’s collar was fur, too, but pure white, and it draped and framed her neck and face dramatically as it cascaded down the front like a first snow.  Her hair was pulled back tightly into a style reminiscent of Kim Novak in “Vertigo.”  Like the collar of the coat, her hair was also white, but it was thinning, with a tinge of yellow-blond still evident throughout it.  Her face was carefully made up.  And on the very crown of her head sat a sparkling tiara.

Perhaps it was because we were just within the entrance of a local grocery store, just about noon, on an ordinary Sunday … or perhaps it was because I had just turned the corner to exit and she appeared so suddenly before me.  But I stopped rather abruptly.  She was just there.  Only a few feet in front of me.  And we looked at each other.  And her eyes seemed guarded, her mouth set, her chin lifted, as if she hesitated, waiting to pass through a moment of uncertainty, perhaps needing courage.  more “Noticing the noticers.” …

One year, nine months, two weeks, and six days.  That’s how long it had been since I’d last walked in Hitchcock Woods – enjoying the absolute magic of it – the slopes and curves, the pathways and trails, the greens and browns, the damps and dries, the sights and sounds and scents, the authentic heaven-blessed earth-rich connection of it. more “It had been far too long.” …

They say we all have one.  A doppelgänger.  Another person in the world who is our exact double.  Someone who looks as much like us as an identical twin – a real split-egg, shared-birth, DNA copycat person, but without the family connection.  

Our doppelgängers are believed to share a similar personality with us, too:  same traits and temperament, same likes and dislikes, same strengths and vulnerabilities.  All those things that make us go “wow!” or “ewww!” are uncannily the same as our doppelgängers.  Sometimes, we even have the same birth dates.

There was a time when doppelgängers were dreaded, thought to bring bad luck.  It was certainly a bad omen if you saw your own.  The name itself (doppelgänger) is German and stands for “double walker.”  In English the term is “dead ringer.”  In ancient Egypt they were your “spirit doubles.”  The Norse called them “ghost walkers,” and they preceded you, walking through your life just ahead of you, performing your actions just before you did.  Often in literature they’re referred to as your “shadow self.”  All of which do sound rather haunting, foreboding, dark and suggestive.

Today, however, science is proving doppelgängers to be very real.  A trick of long-standing genetics and roll-the-dice coincidence:  generations of DNA strands that align just right.  (Of course, there is always the theory of time travel, which is popular with some folks, too.)

Personally, I rather like the idea of having a doppelgänger.  I like to believe she is alive and well and living in Paris.  Or in the old part of Vienna.  Perhaps in a woodland in Scotland.  Or near a lake in Switzerland.  She is a writer.  A lover of animals and nature.  She’s living alone in her skylight apartment (or small cozy cottage) guarding her independence.  She’s just my age.  Unfortunately, she also has breaky bones, so she’s probably also gimpy from being blind-sided by dogs or a tumble over cats.

But what if she’s not safe in a cafe in Paris … or a cottage in Scotland or Switzerland?  What if she’s living somewhere else?  Somewhere war-torn or unjust and unkind, or filled with mudslides and fires or lack of food and bombs screaming all around her.  And there are other hurting people screaming all around her.  And she’s trying to survive, trying to walk to safety, afraid of losing her brave brown dog, struggling to carry her old black and white cat.  Losing strength every day.  Losing hope.  And she’s frightened and in danger all the time.  And she’s in pain.  What if my doppelgänger is still under the rubble?

So here I am sitting in the warm Carolina sun.  Safe on the steps of my own little cottage, tossing a ball for my own brave brown dog, with my old black and white cat asleep in the window.  I sit in my comfort and privilege and think of my doppelgänger.  Wherever she is.  And so I think I must pray for her – and her dog and her cat.  

I think about if I were in her place.  Would I be able to survive?  Would I just turn my face to the wall.  Would I even call out for help.  Would my fear and trembling overtake me.

I must pray for them all to be safe and unafraid and searched for and found.  I must pray for her courage.  For more courage than I might have in her place.  I’ll pray that, even if I would give up, she still has the passion to climb out from under the weight of the chaos and collapse that closes in on her.  I’ll pray she is fierce.   

And I’ll pray that she knows I am praying for her.  As I hope she is praying for me.