#POstables I am on absolute pins of joy awaiting #SignedSealedDelivered to arrive THIS Sunday!! Eek Letter writers unite! What beautiful joy
— Jorie Loves A Story (@JLovesAStory) April 16, 2014
To the discernible eye, there is a curious addition to the sidebar of Jorie Loves A Story nearly the full length of the page right before you alight at the badge for “The Society for the Ethical Treatment of Typewriters” you will find a curious headline “X Postal Correspondances X”. I cheekily used ‘X’ to mark the spot, as it was the only way to have certain link categories follow last underneath my bookishly inclined links which include everything from bookish blogs, to bookish festivals, to some of the most wickedly smashing libraries I could ever hope to visit one day! And, rather fittingly directly below this section is “X Typewriter Culture X” as you can see dear hearts, I have this affinity attachment to yesteryear technology! My most adamant dream is to one day own at least two if not four retrofitted typewriters from the 1930s (cough), 1940s (most likely), and 1950s (dare I?)! As you tell from my reactions it is less plausible at times to conspire hope for a machine of the ’30s if one wants to use the machine as a workhorse! The latter years were built with more security of sanctity or so it would appear from my research!
I have oft found myself a bit bemused that no one has ever been inclined to ask me about those curious additions being that this is a predominately active bookish blog! The truth of the matter is that I have been a #POstables girl long before there was a Hallmark Channel tv movie entitled: “Signed, Sealed, Delivered”! For you see, from the tender age of eleven years, I have been wholly entranced and captured by the singular experience of writing postal letters whereupon I affix postage stamps (mind you, not the metered printable strips which nearly have overtaken the joy of a letter-writer’s life!) and cart out my words, my hopes, and my incantations of my ordinary hours into the winged world of the United States Postal Service! My heart flutters a bit whenever I last see the envelopes I so lovingly grasped in my hands, as they are ferreted out to be sorted, cancelled, and shipped. I excise an anxious moment of willing myself to not allow my anxiety to become transfixed on the few instances where my letters and/or parcels have not arrived fully intact. Those are the rare instances of postal communications which those of us who have sent letters the near-full of our lives take as par for course! For each letter that is safely delivered is a calming balm to the worriment over a handful of wayward ones!
Last year, (2013) when I stumbled across such a curious little premise of a two-hour movie reflective of my own fluttering joy of postal experiences, I could not help but curl up in front of the tv quite betwixt for the entire teleplay to conclude! There inside this quirky cast of characters and the illusion that even our wayward letters have the ability to right their sails during troubled seas and reach the dear hearts we first hoped would receive our thoughts inked into the pages of our letter; reaffirmed the hope of every letter-writer! A tender-hearted dapper gent was at the helm of the Dead Letter Office, taking upon it as his duty not only to seek out the receiver and the sender, but to give meaning and purpose to his job. Not to take lightly the contents of said letter nor of the wishes of the sender as one could only speculate the circumstances surrounding its errand.
Entranced and thirsty for more stories of Signed, Sealed, Delivered I cast out a hopeful prayer that perhaps in light of Hallmark Channel’s new fervent attempt to listen to their listeners others had voiced their intentions as I. I was not connected to Twitter at the time of the airing, nor would I have been as comfortable with Twitter then as I am now as it does take a bit of adapting to get the handle on ‘hashtags’ and ‘conversations’! No. I might not have even been as keen to declare my love of certain series, keeping my thoughts in the closet and hoping Hallmark would silently hear my plea. Sometimes I find in life that even the voiceless hopes we desire become answered prayers in the hours we are not expecting to find an answer. And, isn’t that a bit like how our letters are delivered!? Handled by one carrier to another, passing through one state to reach one at the opposite end of our country? Yet, let’s expand this a bit further outside our shores as I correspond with global friends not just ones who are stateside, how then does the letter I hand over to the postal clerk who patiently awaits my choices of stamps to become affixed to the top of the envelope get delivered to an entirely different continent and country? Oh, to be such a spy and follow the little winged fellow! To see what an envelope sees as it is transported from truck to plane or truck to boat! Who knows truly the paths in which our words have to traverse to reach those we intend to read our news?
@JLovesAStory Thanks so much! Glad you’ll be watching the #POstables on #SignedSealedDelivered on @hallmarkchannel in 26 days!
— Eric_Mabius (@Eric_Mabius) March 25, 2014
Tonight’s episode dealt with the paradoxical dilemma in knowing your loved ones are inside Witness Protection but your grandson is bent on sorting out where you (his grandmother) reside as missing your birthday is not sitting well with him. To watch as the gallant and friendly postal workers detect his whereabouts and access the situation on the fly, was pure joy! Of course, one of my favourite moments is when they are all stuffed into the car like clowns at the circus and the grandmother in question realises that “the Dead Letter Office” is not a front for the US Marshalls but rather the sincere honesty of the group who take each letter as a trusted treasure to be protected until the right person is found to receive it! Of course the entire sequence relating to Norman and the lovely book of retired stamps he inherited out of friendship had my eyes glisten in remembrance of my grandfather, who instilled in me a passion for stamp collecting!
An appreciator of cosy mysteries since infancy apparently, I loved the subtle noddings of a ragtag amateur detective squad seeking out clues and nibbling out the truth as they go along. The only thing lacking a bit in the series that the movie had the flexibility to do as it had more length of time, is the stretching of the mystery itself. To elongate the intrigue to just a shaving of a fraction giving us less of a leeway of seeing the resolution of the ending around the next bend in the script. Even with that foreshadow being in plain sight rather than obscure, I cannot help by mirthfully find myself not only at ease of heart whilst watching the show but bewitched about how ruefully clever Hallmark Channel was in greenlighting a serial programme which has a bottomless well of stories yet to be lifted to screen!
I’ve been having a heap of fun exchanging tweets with either the cast directly OR with the void of unknowns who happily attach themselves to the tag #POstables. As sometimes you will find yourself wanting to write a short note into the void of the twitterverse, hoping the words resound with another of a like-mind and perhaps settle a smile as they click through to another tweet. I took to being a #Hearties like lightning due to the blissful Saturday nights spent seeing how the community of Coal Valley would carry-on after such a tragic beginning. I do not think my affection for romance is a shocking declaration to those who visit my blog regularly! A sweet romance touched with inspiration is always a hug of comfort to gladden one’s day!
Yet, as a self-declared #POstables girl in my tweets, this particular attachment goes close to my heart-strings! For I have always kept the letters I’ve received warmly reflective of when I first glimpsed them in my postbox! How keen it was to see all the different country stamps affixed to the upper corners! To denote the differences in hand-writings of friends not yet readily known but on the verge of a keen friendship soon to blossom! The textural changes in writing papers and envelopes, as well as how the length of letter changes from one friend to the next. Oh, how I have been a #POstables girl long before there was ever a hashtag OR a television series!
And, like Mr. O’ Toole I have always been happily enchanted by the touch of each envelope which arrives — knowing that somewhere out there in a world which has become closer by heart, a dear friend is fervently anxious to hear my reactions to the words cast out in ink, paper, and seal! Next week, I shall disclose a bit of what inspired the collection of links in my sidebar and why washi tape has befuddled my ability to use ‘scotch tape’!
Click-over to the Official Signed, Sealed, Delivered Trailer:
http://www.hallmarkchannel.com/signedsealeddelivered
@SSD_TV @hallmarkchannel Eek! This #POstables girl is bursting w/excited happiness seeing 1of her favourite #HeartofTV films spark a series! — Jorie Loves A Story (@JLovesAStory) April 20, 2014
Official Twitter Accounts for Signed, Sealed, Delivered:
- @SignedSealedTV
- @MarthaMoonWater {executive producer}
- @pamslay {Publicity for Hallmark Channel}
- @Eric_Mabius {Oliver O’ Toole}
- @kristintbooth {Shane McInerney}
- @RealCrystalLowe {Rita Haywith}
- @geoffgustafson {Norman Dorman}
Converse via: #SignedSealedDelivered, #POstables or #SSD_TV
I now turn the table of conversation over to you, dear hearts! What first propelled you to watch “Signed, Sealed, Delivered”?! Were you as euphorically excited as I was that this particular series is a besmirked sequel of “Touched by an Angel” on the level that faith is interwoven into the story-lines as gentle as a touch of grace? And, how “the Dead Letter Office” are as conspiratorial as our beloved Angels? Seeking to help those who need them most without thought of what lengths they might have to go in order to have each case handed to them sorted and put back to rights? Have you been a letter-writer throughout your life OR have you only begun to take up your pen? Do you get as excited as I do about stationary artists, postal stamp release dates, and distress inks to jazz up your rubber stamps!? Do you decorate your envelopes and spend hours on Vistaprint sorting out return address label designs? What kind of postal joy makes you smile the most!?
When I first saw this tweet sent by Ms. Andra Wakins I knew I had found another postal mail kindred soul:
International reader letters going out today. Squeeeeeee! #NatchezTrace #toliveforeverbook #NatchezTrace walk444miles pic.twitter.com/ZkLh2aDNHO
— andrawatkins (@andrawatkins) February 5, 2014
{SOURCES: Sunday’s #POstables Postscript badge created by Jorie in PicMonkey. Tweets were embedded due to codes provided by Twitter.}
Copyright © Jorie Loves A Story, 2014.
Related Articles:
The American Philatelic Society – (stamps.org)