ASSIGNMENTS:
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"Write a letter to yourself and trust someone you don't know with it."
Jeannie Urbanski
Portland, Oregon USA
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REPORTS:
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1. find someone that you don't know very well.
2. ask them if they would like to write a letter to themselves. i think it would help if you had envelopes and paper and stamps with you.
3. write the letters. what would you like to say to your future self? what are you hoping not to forget? what did you do today? this is your chance to time-travel. what things do you know now that you will forget later? or what questions do you have? you can even draw a little picture.
4. seal them in envelopes. stamp them. self-address them.
5. exchange, and promise to mail the letter in one year.
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Example:
Hi Self,
How are you doing? I'm doing okay. I just met Lara at the hostel in Portland and we decided to write letters to ourselves. We walked around Hawthorne in the late October crunch of leaves and drank cheap beer and looked at houses warm with lights on inside, with pumpkins on porches. are you happy? are you still looking? you didn't give up, did you? michael's staying at the hostel too and he just tangled his hands in my hair. it felt nice. are you still lonely? are you still afraid? i hope that you made friends and that you decided to stay in portland instead of moving back east. and i hope that you have written beautiful things and grown roots too deep to pull up. are you smiling? do you feel loved? do you remember how you kept thinking that you had to live deeply because we only get to do this once? are you doing it, still? what books are you reading and writing? If you haven't talked to your, er... our parents... call them. please. stop being angry. there's not enough time. oh, and give someone a hug, for no reason. do you remember what life was like when you wrote this letter, and you had left behind your life in brooklyn and you were living in a tent? you must have learned a lot by now... i can't imagine what your life must be like, or that i am going to become you. i can't see past tomorrow.
i love you,
see you soon,
me
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