Craig, Letter Carrier, and his husband Pete, writer and filmmaker, at their home.
"My job has always been about adapting. Most often that has been about adapting to the weather. Dress in layers, don’t forget to grab my rain gear, gonna need a sun hat today, better put those galoshes on cuz the grass looks awfully wet from overnight, etc.Â
Or I’m learning new procedures for delivering and tracking the mail. Work stuff. Now it’s adapting to wearing gloves, wearing a mask, paying more attention to what I come in contact with throughout the day.
I’m waving more and nodding more because you can’t see how big I’m smiling under a mask. The first weeks I was so tired and worn out and stressed at the end of the day. So now I’m strict about an earlier bed time, packing extra snacks in my lunch, and using my break time to read a book instead of staring at my phone and the news."
"I worry most about customers who are alone. Most of the closest relationships I’ve had day to day on my routes have been with elderly people who live alone. Knowing that waiting for the mail to come each day is something so many people focus on and knowing that I might be the only person they talk to for that day, I treasure that contact.
Right now I know that people are already reaching out in ways new to them. More letters are being sent, handwritten postcards in the mail, care packages and extra special wrapped birthday presents. And Cards!!! All the cards! Birthday cards and Mother’s Day cards and thank you cards and all kinds of cards with stickers and notes and decorations all over the envelopes! And cards that probably just say 'thinking of you' or 'miss you' or 'love you'. And sadly I know some are sympathy cards.
But I hope that is a good that comes from all this. People learn, or see, or appreciate, or remember - how wonderful a piece of mail with their own name handwritten above their address arriving in the mail - can be."
"Despite a certain level of anxiety, I see so many encouraging things day after day at work. I keep telling people that for me every work day feels like a Saturday.Â
Saturdays are the day that a letter carrier gets to see their customers. People out working on the lawn, the garden and the yard. Everyone is walking their dogs. Kids are home and they’re outside. Learning to ride a bike, on skateboards and rollerblades, coloring with sidewalk chalk, or making chalk hopscotch squares that start with square one but go past ten to twenty and thirty and forty - stretching halfway down the block."
"On Saturdays I meet the customers that I’ve never met before. People have more time to take a minute and greet me, ask how things are going. Say thanks. Ask a question about mailing something or how can they get more stamps. Now everyday is a Saturday."