This Mom Pushes The Envelope

With a Flourish, She Keeps Those Cards and Letters Coming

My mother does not believe in unadorned envelopes. "A plain white envelope is like a birthday with no cake," she says. Growing up, I would sneak undecorated envelopes under the front doormat, the corner sticking out, hoping that the postman would spot it but my mother would not. At the end of the day, the letter would be on my pillow. My mother would give me the rubber stamps, glitter, markers and stickers: "Decorate it until there's no white showing!" After I learned to drive, I would deposit my plain white envelopes in a neighborhood mailbox, in fits of rebellion.

At summer camp, I would receive outlandishly decorated envelopes. My friends would receive plain envelopes with typed letters from their parents, or Hallmark cards from their boyfriends. I would receive envelopes with ribbons dangling and shedding so much glitter that I looked like a Moulin Rouge dancer by the time I opened them. I am a teenager, I thought. Why is it so hard for my mother to let me fit in?

At college, I was thankful that e-mail was the major form of communication, although my mother decorated her e-mails, too. She insisted on magenta backgrounds with turquoise letters and an array of fonts. At least no one would see them, I thought. But twice a week, at least, my roommate would return from our dormitory lobby with a stack of letters: bills, letters from her grandmother -- and frilly, lacy, collaged envelopes from my mother. I would shyly pick up my pieces of mail and sit at my desk to read them, my back turned to my roommate. One day, she exclaimed over how much mail I received. I shrugged, trying to appear indifferent. "You are so lucky," she said.

For my mother's birthday that year, I mailed her a card. I had never had to send her a birthday card before because I lived at home. But I found myself sitting in my dorm late one night, creating the perfect handmade card. I addressed the envelope, put an "I love you" stamp in the upper-right corner and began to decorate. Flowers. Suns. Hearts. Stars. Birds. When my mother received the envelope, she would not even need to open it. It was already the best birthday present she could have hoped for.

No matter what changed -- my classes, my friends, my love interests, the weather in Boston -- I could always count on one thing: letters from my mother. The eccentric decorations became stunning displays of her talent and her passion for beauty. In the distance from her and my life at home, I began to cherish these letters. In fact, I taped them all to my wall so that I could see them when I woke up, during my day and when I went to bed. By the end of freshman year, the letters covered the entire wall, overlapping and extending onto the ceiling.

During a semester in Italy, I felt farther away from home than ever. Not only was there a six-hour time difference, but phone calls were expensive and e-mail seemed trivial and made me feel even more distant from my old life. I lived with an Italian woman who was cold and stern with me. I missed my mother.

After a day spent walking around Florence in the rain, I could not wait to jump into bed. But Vanna, my host mother, knocked on the door to my room. She was the last person I wanted to see. "Una lettera," she said, holding a pink envelope in her hand, three stamps in the upper-right corner, postmarked Washington, D.C. The pieces of collage and cut-out papers were mangled and torn. Most of the glitter had fallen off and a small corner was ripped. It was wet from the rain. The letter had made it all the way from my mother's hands and heart to my own.

I never let a plain white envelope leave my house now. On the first of the month, rent is due. I decorate the envelope with smiley faces and stickers of bunnies and fish. If the corners of my landlords' mouths turn up even a little, my mission is accomplished.

My mother taught me to embellish life in a way no one else could. She turns misfortunes into brilliant stories -- not always factual but always thrilling. She places adorned toothpicks in grilled cheese sandwiches and pours juice in sequined glasses. She takes the ordinary and makes it truly extraordinary. Sometimes I like to think I see these qualities in myself. When I do, I smile and write a letter to thank her. In a decorated envelope, of course.