The Simple Pleasures of Mail

So last night, I got a treat. I arrived home to find a Thanksgiving card in the mailbox for me, from my Man.  It was, of course, the type of card he would never send were he free- it was your typical mushy religious type card that your grandmother would send you at the holidays filled with sentimental well wishes. That's so not my big savage wolf. However it's the best he can do, given the circumstances, and I'm always touched that he sends them at all.  But what really made me laugh and cry all at once was what it contained inside.

He'd turned the card sideways, outlined his hand, and then made it into a turkey. The last time I'd seen that (or done that) I think I was five years old. To see it now on the inside of his card, and to see the sheer size of his big paw, was poignant. It showed a certain letting down of his guard, showed me his tender playful side, and showed me that he knew how much such gestures meant to me. When that's the only medium you have of showing intimacy and affection, you find creative ways to make yourself present in your partner's life. Of course I immediately put my hand up inside the outline of his- his hands are so big!  I smiled to see it even as tears escaped the corners of my eyes. 

So often that happens in the world of prison relationships. Smiling through tears. This lifestyle is overcrowded with bittersweet emotion.

My perfume plays a huge role in the connection we share. When I first started writing to him, my man begged me to spray the letters with perfume. There is no smell in there; its a sterile gray scale environment.  Moved by the request, I complied, and sent that first perfume laden page to him. He wrote me back telling me that my perfume was beautiful, and somehow magical, and he slept with one next to his head so he could turn over and smell that fragrance in his dreams. Now he receives one every day and opens several at a time to scent his whole cell. Inmates and guards alike comment on the sweetness of the perfume. I think it makes him proud to say "That's from my woman." I know it makes me proud to be his woman. 

I spend a lot of money on perfume ;)