I changed the topic for this month’s newsletter at the last minute. I was going to write about my dogs, specifically my new senior rescue dog, Rosie. Now, you may be thinking, “I want to hear another story about your dogs, Tess, about as much as I want to hear that Tom Brady’s going to another Super Bowl.” But friends, Rosie (or as we fans of the series “Schitt’s Creek” have started calling her, “Rosebud”) has a story that’s worth a newsletter. I promise. But that’s now for another day. As of about 11:00 am Friday morning, after I read one of the fixtures of my Friday mornings—an email newsletter from writer and artist Austin Kleon—the topic of today’s Tesstimonial became … well, you’ll see.
First, a little backstory.
In April 2014, during a bit of a low period, I started a project that I hoped would help lift my spirts. I called it The Love Note Project. From May 8, 2014 to May 7, 2015, for 365 straight days, I wrote and mailed at least one letter per day. I wrote to family, friends, acquaintances, and even complete strangers. Some people received multiple letters (tip: parents never tire of finding a letter in the mailbox from their kids, even when those “kids” qualify for AARP membership). My thinking behind this project was pretty simple: if you’re focused on others, you think less about yourself and your own troubles. And it worked. Now, I’m not suggesting that letter-writing is a cure for everyone’s, or even my, depression. However, it certainly lifted me out of the doldrums most days. I even wrote a letter on the night of July 4, 2014, after a slip and fall on the asphalt in a Starbucks parking lot sent me to the hospital ER. Almost two months in, I had to keep The Love Note Project going.
Holidays, vacations, sick days—nothing kept me from putting pen to paper. But with each trip to the mailbox, writing letters took on an even bigger meaning than keeping the streak alive. The letters were having an impact. I’d hear from those I had written to. “It made my day,” some would say, or “what you wrote was just what I needed to hear that day.” I even started including a blank note card in with each of the letters I wrote and encouraged others to send out their own love notes, borrowing from the “pay it forward” philosophy.
Then, in February 2015, nine months into my letter-writing habit, a mysterious little ad—so small I easily could have missed it—appeared in the lower right-hand corner of page 63 of The New Yorker:
You can imagine my excitement … and head-scratching. Who was this mystery person who actually placed an ad like that in The New Yorker! The last line made me think, well, maybe this person works for the Post Office. Or maybe this person, like me, just came to believe in the power of letter-writing. Compared to them, though, I was still such an amateur. I mean, here was someone placing an ad about letter-writing in The freaking New Yorker. I loved them for it. I carefully tore the page out of the magazine and filed it away with my other Love Not Project papers. The ad’s author remained a mystery.
Until another Friday morning, a year ago.
Austin Kleon had sent out the January 31, 2020 edition of his weekly newsletter. It started as it always does: “Hey y’all. Here are 10 things I thought were worth sharing this week.” At #1, a sad piece of news from Austin: “My friend Jason Polan died. I wrote about his art and what he meant to me.“
I clicked on the link. I read and scrolled and read some more, and … stopped. My eyes filled, my jaw quivered. “It’s him,” I said.
Austin’s tribute to his friend included a photo from the very same page of The New Yorker that I had held onto for five years. The caption below the photo reads: “An ad Jason took out in TheNew Yorker”. The mystery had finally been solved.
I hope you’ll click on the link above and read Austin’s story about Jason Polan. I knew nothing about him at the time, but Jason was a prolific New York sketch artist, whose death on January 27, 2020, at age 37, was reported in both The New York Times and The Washington Post. It’s Austin’s piece, though, that best captures his friend’s big heart, his humility, and his humanity.
So, what was it, exactly, that caused me to change my topic for today’s newsletter? Yes, as I’ve mentioned above, it was the newsletter Austin Kleon sent out two days ago. But, specifically, it was #4 on his list of the ten things he thought were worth sharing this week. “Hey y’all,” he begins. “It’s been a year since Jason Polan died. I’m still thinking about him.”
Thanks to you, Austin, so am I.
(If you’d like to sign up for Austin Kleon’s terrific newsletter, click here.)
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Tess
(Top Photo Credit: Gemma Evans on Unsplash)