LEAVING LETTERS
postcards from readers
The Leaving Season Postcard Project was born out of my love for postcards and a suspicion that we are all leaving things, all the time. If you’d like to send me a postcard, please check out this link for instructions.
“Aha, I thought, there it is, there’s the door…”
My favorite thing about this postcard, aside from the narrative rawness and deadly surgical cut of the final line, is the way this writer circled the word LEFT. Part of me thought, Of course you did, you didn’t need to circle one or the other option. But then I remembered: this door part is tricky.
Why do so many of us stand in that doorway for so long? Why is the door a place that we must so often construct with evidence, instead of trusting the beating sureness of our own hearts?
I told him I was pregnant and he said, “this fixes everything.” Oh no, I thought. This is very bad. But I stayed another night. I told him not to tell anyone. He told 3 friends while I was in the bathroom. He said he was looking up houses outside the city. I said I’d never move. The next morning while he slept I creeped into his phone and found dick pics he’d sent to someone else two days before. Aha, I thought, there it is. There’s the door, you can leave now.
Want to be part of The Leaving Season Postcard Project? Or use the postcards in your classroom or bookclub? Send me a note!
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Buy The Leaving Season here, Welcome to Shirley here, Wanting: Women Writing About Desire here, and This is the Place: Women Writing About Home here.
