Jo era una dels pocs universitaris qui tenia una raó per anar a l'apartat de Correus al final del dia, i això era perquè la meva mare no hi ha cregut mai en correus electrònics, Facebook, SMS, ni en els mòbils en general. Així que mentre altres xatejaven a la Blackberry amb els seus pares, jo esperava literalment al costat de la bústia que arribés una carta de casa per saber com havia anat el cap de setmana, cosa que era una mica frustrant quan l'àvia estava a l'hospital, però... jo buscava alguna mena de gargot, la lletra descuidada de la meva mare.
I was one of the only kids in college who had a reason to go to the P.O. box at the end of the day, and that was mainly because my mother has never believed in email, in Facebook, in texting or cell phones in general. And so while other kids were BBM-ing their parents, I was literally waiting by the mailbox to get a letter from home to see how the weekend had gone, which was a little frustrating when Grandma was in the hospital, but I was just looking for some sort of scribble, some unkempt cursive from my mother.
Quan em vaig traslladar a Nova York després de la universitat i vaig caure en una profunda depressió, vaig fer l'única cosa en què podia pensar aquell moment. Vaig escriure cartes com les que m'escrivia la meva mare per a desconeguts, i vaig repartir-les per tota la ciutat, dotzenes i dotzenes de cartes. Les deixava a tot arreu, en bars i biblioteques, a la ONU, a tot arreu. Escrivia un bloc sobre aquestes cartes i sobre quan eren necessàries, i vaig fer una mena de promesa boja a l'Internet: que si algú em demanava una carta manuscrita, jo li n'escriuria una, sense fer cap pregunta. De sobte, la meva bústia d'entrada es va transformar en un refugi per a desconsolats -- una mare soltera de Sacramento, una noia que patia encalçament escolar a un poble de Kansas, tots demanant-me a mi, una noia de 22 anys que amb prou feines sabia com li agradava el café, que els escrigués una carta d'amor i els hi donés així una raó per a esperar al costat de la bústia.
And so when I moved to New York City after college and got completely sucker-punched in the face by depression, I did the only thing I could think of at the time. I wrote those same kinds of letters that my mother had written me for strangers, and tucked them all throughout the city, dozens and dozens of them. I left them everywhere, in cafes and in libraries, at the U.N., everywhere. I blogged about those letters and the days when they were necessary, and I posed a kind of crazy promise to the Internet: that if you asked me for a hand-written letter, I would write you one, no questions asked. Overnight, my inbox morphed into this harbor of heartbreak -- a single mother in Sacramento, a girl being bullied in rural Kansas, all asking me, a 22-year-old girl who barely even knew her own coffee order, to write them a love letter and give them a reason to wait by the mailbox.
Bé, avui impulso una organització global que es veu alimentada per aquests viatges a la bústia, per la manera en què podem utilitzar els mitjans socials com mai abans per a escriure cartes i missatges a desconeguts quan més ho necessitin, però per damunt de tot, alimentada per caixes de cartes com aquesta, la meva caixa fidel, plena d'escrits de gent normal, desconeguts que escriuen cartes a altres desconeguts, no pas perquè vagin a quedar per a riure prenent una tassa de cafè, sinó perquè s'han trobat l'un a l'altre escrivint cartes.
Well, today I fuel a global organization that is fueled by those trips to the mailbox, fueled by the ways in which we can harness social media like never before to write and mail strangers letters when they need them most, but most of all, fueled by crates of mail like this one, my trusty mail crate, filled with the scriptings of ordinary people, strangers writing letters to other strangers not because they're ever going to meet and laugh over a cup of coffee, but because they have found one another by way of letter-writing.
Però el que sempre m'atrapa d'aquestes cartes és que la majoria han estat escrites per gent que mai habia rebut una carta d'amor en paper. No podrien dir-vos res sobre la tinta de les seves pròpies cartes d'amor. Són els de la meva generació, aquells de nosaltres que han crescut en un món a on el paper ja no es fa servir per res, i a on algunes de les nostres millors converses han estat a través d'una pantalla. Hem après a expressar el nostre patiment a Facebook, i parlem en frases de 140 caràcters o menys.
But, you know, the thing that always gets me about these letters is that most of them have been written by people that have never known themselves loved on a piece of paper. They could not tell you about the ink of their own love letters. They're the ones from my generation, the ones of us that have grown up into a world where everything is paperless, and where some of our best conversations have happened upon a screen. We have learned to diary our pain onto Facebook, and we speak swiftly in 140 characters or less.
Però què passa si aquest cop la cosa no va d'eficiència? Ahir estava al metro amb la caixa de cartes, que és una generadora de converses, haig de dir. Si necessiteu parlar, només l'heu de portar a sobre. (Riures) Un home s'em va quedar mirant, i era com, "Bé, perquè no fas servir l'Internet?" I vaig pensar, "Bé, senyor, ni sóc estratega ni sóc especialista. Sóc simplement narradora". Us podria explicar el cas d'una dona el marit de la qual acaba de tornar de l'Afganistan i li costa molt tornar a entaular allò que diem conversació, així que deixa cartes d'amor per tota la casa com dient, "Torna a mi. Troba'm quan puguis". O una noia que decideix repartir cartes d'amor per tot el seu campus a Dubuque, Iowa, per veure al dia següent l'efecte onada resultat dels seus esforços en sortir al pati i trobar cartes d'amor penjades als arbres, repartides entre els matolls i els bancs. O l'home que decideix suicidar-se, i utilitza Facebook per despedir-se d'amics i familiars. Doncs bé, aquesta nit dorm tranquil amb una pila de cartes igual que aquesta sota el coixí, escrites per desconeguts que estaven allà quan calia.
But what if it's not about efficiency this time? I was on the subway yesterday with this mail crate, which is a conversation starter, let me tell you. If you ever need one, just carry one of these. (Laughter) And a man just stared at me, and he was like, "Well, why don't you use the Internet?" And I thought, "Well, sir, I am not a strategist, nor am I specialist. I am merely a storyteller." And so I could tell you about a woman whose husband has just come home from Afghanistan, and she is having a hard time unearthing this thing called conversation, and so she tucks love letters throughout the house as a way to say, "Come back to me. Find me when you can." Or a girl who decides that she is going to leave love letters around her campus in Dubuque, Iowa, only to find her efforts ripple-effected the next day when she walks out onto the quad and finds love letters hanging from the trees, tucked in the bushes and the benches. Or the man who decides that he is going to take his life, uses Facebook as a way to say goodbye to friends and family. Well, tonight he sleeps safely with a stack of letters just like this one tucked beneath his pillow, scripted by strangers who were there for him when.
Aquest tipus d'històries em van convèncer que escriure cartes mai més haurà d'apartarse el cabell i parlar d'eficiència, perquè ara és una forma d'art, totes les seves parts, la signatura, el cos, l'enviament, els gargots als marges. El sol fet que algú s'assegui, agafi un troç de paper i pensi en algú amb una intenció que és molt més difícil d'exterioritzar quan tenim el navegador obert, l'iPhone sonant i tenim sis converses alhora, això és una forma d'art que no cau davant el Goliat del "sigues més ràpid", tant se val a quantes xarxes socials estiguis inscrit. Encara apretem fort aquestes cartes contra el pit, les paraules que parlen fort i més fort, quan convertim les pàgines en paletes de pintor per dir les coses que necessitàvem dir, les paraules que hem necessitat escriure, a les germanes i germans, i fins i tot a desconeguts, des de ja fa molt de temps. Gràcies. (Aplaudiments) (Aplaudiments)
These are the kinds of stories that convinced me that letter-writing will never again need to flip back her hair and talk about efficiency, because she is an art form now, all the parts of her, the signing, the scripting, the mailing, the doodles in the margins. The mere fact that somebody would even just sit down, pull out a piece of paper and think about someone the whole way through, with an intention that is so much harder to unearth when the browser is up and the iPhone is pinging and we've got six conversations rolling in at once, that is an art form that does not fall down to the Goliath of "get faster," no matter how many social networks we might join. We still clutch close these letters to our chest, to the words that speak louder than loud, when we turn pages into palettes to say the things that we have needed to say, the words that we have needed to write, to sisters and brothers and even to strangers, for far too long. Thank you. (Applause) (Applause)