(Disclaimer: If hearing others recount dreams annoys you, stop reading now.)
When I was at Earlham College, my mail was delivered to box #628. In the decades since graduation, I’ve had occasional dreams, variations of something like this: I’m on campus, having forgotten to pick up my mail for days, or even weeks. I go to the basement of the student union, find box #628, and try to recall the combination of letters (I think it was letters and not numbers) that open the sweet, old-fashioned window-door and release letters and postcards. In some dreams, I get the combination quickly, when I let my hands (and not my brain) do the work of remembering, of unlocking, and then I find what awaits.
These dreams have ranged from nostalgic to mildly anxious-making, depending on whether I can remember the combination, and how long it’s been since I checked. Sometimes I have a vague nag of expecting something important that might be lost. Often, I’m semi-lucid in the dream, my waking mind wondering how that could still possibly be my mailbox, and what mail I might have received in the long interim between 1988 and the present.
(And peripheral questions tap at my door: Have they changed the combination? Have they renovated the entire place? Is box#628 even still there?)
Last night, I had that dream again. I found box #628 at the end of all the boxes, which, in dream logic, made sense: either there were only 628 students on campus, or they rearranged the boxes so that mine–which had been held the longest, because surely the rest were all reserved for current students–was moved to the end of the line. I had a certain amount of pride as I went to my decades-old mail drop, aware in the dream of my current age, old enough to be mother to the other students.
Then when I woke, I thought, “Wouldn’t it be fun to write a letter to the current inhabitant of box #628? Would she or he write back?” So here’s what I’m going to send.
Dear Earlham Student who gets mail at box #628,
My name is Rebecca and I graduated in 1988. When I was at Earlham, I got mail at box #628. It’s probably impossible for you to imagine or understand this, but ever since college, I’ve occasionally had dreams about going back to get my mail again from box #628. I’d love to know who currently inhabits that mailbox. I’m sure you’re very busy with college life, doughnut runs, theatre productions, humanities classes, and much more interesting diversions and political action than a graduate from the 1980s can fathom, but if you have time, I’d love to hear who you are, where you’re from, what you’re studying, anything else you’d like to tell me. You can email me if that’s easier than writing a real letter. With your permission, I could even post your message on my blog at http://www.rebeccakuder.com. You could be famous! If nothing else, and you have neither the interest nor time to respond, you should know that there’s someone out here in the world who thinks about box #628 in some of the same ways that you might, as a useful place in the world, and remembers it very fondly, back through the years.
If I’d gotten a letter like this when I was using box #628, would I have written back? Would I have been creeped out by the image of a forty-something stalker who hadn’t moved on from her golden days? I like to think I’d be amused, and might humor the old person. Send a postcard.
For me, now, it would not be the same to pick up this fictional postcard from my current mailbox as from box #628. But somehow it would make a line into a circle.
Rebecca Kuder 
Now that you have done something about your dreams in this world, I wonder what you will dream next time you visit 628.
Surely something nostalgic, or unsettling. I didn’t mention that I’ve been to campus, waking, since graduation. I tried to open the box but couldn’t remember the combination. Probably just as well, avoiding felony and all that…
Play the lottery NOW!! :)
Love the attempt, and the nostalgia. Keep us posted!
Good advice! I need to send that letter.
Some years back, I went to my box (#632) and was able to open it by letting my fingers remember the combination. Got it on the first try, in fact. At least ten years had past, it might have been fifteen… I wonder if I’d be able to do it now?
I LOVE that you’re sending this note, and I hope the student is as charmed by it as I would have been. But I also wonder if those boxes have the same allure now that they did for us? I’ve been bemoaning the fact for years that my mailbox here almost NEVER contains anything fun. For a brief shining period it seemed like emails had at least gotten people back in the habit of writing letters in SOME way, but even that seems to have faded now. So, assuming college students never even got in the habit of writing or receiving letters, do those boxes even trigger excitement anymore? The occasional package notice perhaps, but is that it? All the more reason I hope you/we hear from this student.
Patrick, great points! I think I remember now your telling me that had worked for you (going back years later to try the combination…) I will send the letter in the morning. Maybe the lack of paper mail these days will at least mean that the recipient does notice the letter… I will post what I discover! (And I hope s/he doesn’t give me the combination! That would be really weird, like getting new glasses after never being able to see clearly, or something…too bright!)
I sent the letter. Today I got it returned to me, with the “Address Unknown” box checked. I’m assuming it’s because I had no NAME of a person to put onthe envelope (which is the whole point of the letter!) So, do I print a copy of the letter, and send it with an explanatory note to the Earlham postmaster, detailing my innocent intentions, and let him/her decide what to do with it? Will the Earlham postmaster be a person who can make autonomous decisions like that? I remember the people who worked in the mailroom were pretty nice back those many years ago…
(Or, gasp, is the mailbox ITSELF gone? That’s going to give me nightmares tonight.)
Wow – no mailbox would be a let-down! Unless you can network like crazy and find an Earlham student to assist, I’d say after going this far sending it to the postmaster is worth a shot.
Cyndi, I hadn’t thought of finding some student… good idea!
Earlham College as in Indiana? They have a Facebook page! ;-)
Yes, I am a “fan” of Earlham on FB. Maybe I can post a note there. Is that too stalkerish?
Not if you explain your motives! There’s bound to be a kindred spirit out there somewhere who can help.
At least that’s my theory ;-)