Zen and the art of mail delivery (updated)

by Diana Nelson Jones/Oct 1

After walking the last route of Frank Surano's career with him yesterday, I wrote a traditional news story in today's paper about how he and the part of Park Place he served bonded over 20 years. Read the printed story at http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/09274/1002193-56.stm

Now I am reflecting on what I think happens when a person walks from house to house everyday, the same house-to-house walk.

After five years, and maybe without ever seeing them, you might know all the people on your route better than anyone with whom they work or drink coffee or beer. You know them by everything their absence tells you - the Navajo print throw over the sofa, the excited pooch in the window, the long reflection of a cluttered dining room table and the titles on the spines of books in the bookshelf - and you can almost hear the clocks ticking inside.

After 20 years, your footfalls may line up along the stepping stones and walkways. I imagine the same route becoming a meditative practice and that 20 years of footprints leave a trace archaeologically and that such movements are an invisible weaving that the residents somehow know is there. I could be wrong, but I believe that our presence remains after we have left the scene.

Does your mailman leave an impression in your neighborhood? E-mail me and tell me about it: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.