from 100 Titles From Tom Beckett
#45: Individual White Noise Machine Envelope
I suppose I should consider myself lucky, getting a non-custodial sentence for a second offense of sending out a screed of hate mail. But there were mitigating circumstances. None of the messages were racist or deeply hateful: more along the lines of ‘stop parking in my space or I’ll key your car’ or ‘stop your dog pooping on the pavement in front of my house or I’ll pick the poop & the pooch up & push them into your letter box’ or ‘stop mowing your lawn in the middle of the night or I’ll send my armadillo round to dig it up.’ The recipients were picked randomly from the telephone book & so I had no knowledge if they possessed cars, lawns, or pets. Plus I lived in a trailer park & had next to no possessions anyway so my threats were somewhat empty. &, as further mitigation, I had written my address on the back of every envelope so I couldn’t exactly be accused of trying to hide my identity.
Therefore, instead of bars & cages, another form of bondage. Six months of weekly visits to a psychiatrist, twenty-six hours of my life I’d never get back &, I was certain, get nothing from. At first adversarial: ‘Why do you dislike people?’ ‘You spend so much time writing, so why don’t you try to write a play, or poems, or a novel?’ ‘Where do you get the money for postage from?’ Back & forth, back & forth, hour after hour. But about halfway through we starting identifying the reasons for the likes & dislikes.
So, a word to the whys. We determined that I really did like writing, but became frustrated when I couldn’t seem to get beyond an opening sentence or two & reverted to that single angry phrase that had nothing to do with what I really wanted to say. That I was upset about my lot in life but had no one I knew personally who I could take it out on or talk to about it, hence the use of the phone book. That I included my name & address on the envelope in a hope that my random addressee may turn out to be a literary agent or academic who saw something in my writing & would reach out to see more.
That much established; but how to proceed? My psychiatrist said she would think about it over the coming week, would try to come up with something that might sate my anger but in a way that didn’t offend others, that would satisfy my need for creative endeavors, that wouldn’t consume as much of my fortnightly unemployment benefit.
A week later she had a list of suggestions for me. I didn’t look at it ar first, rather listened to her exposition of the points she’d made. ‘Keep sending the mail out but ration how you do it. Individual pieces. Say what you like but write only to yourself. Post-it notes will keep the message short. By all means use the postal service but a more economical option is to put it in your own letter box when you go out, & open & read it when you get home. It’ll save on the postage, plus you can reuse the envelope.
‘After you read the message, write it down in a notebook. That may seem like a redundancy since you were the one who wrote it in the first place, but it adds some distance so that you can see it in a new light. Plus, you might be able to move past that opening sentence paralysis we discussed earlier when you see several lines together. & don’t for a minute think that you have to have a hundred of them before you do something with them.
‘Finally, buy yourself a white noise gizmo — some of them are reasonably cheap — stick the post-it note to it, & send them together by whatever means of transfer you’ve decided on, just in case you’d lost your temper when you wrote it & that prompts a second angry burst when you read it. The white noise will quickly promote calm within & out with you, a sensory envelope that will work quickly.
‘Oh, & see if you can get one in a neutral color. Works even better.’
Moss Trill 