Friday Letters: Amelia Earhart's love for freedom

Today, I decided that Friday would be my day for sharing some letters whom famous people wrote that inspired and transformed the world. These letters are very relatable and relevant, although some were written decades ago. I remember watching SATC movie part 1, where Mr. Big, to get her back, sent Carrie some love letters written by famous and beloved musicians, thinkers, philosophers and authors. I cannot help but be curious and intrigued by how these great minds feel about love and sacrifice, faith and failures, challenges and triumph.

There is something about letter writing that makes us all very human. Maybe because we tend to pour our hearts out onto these pages trusting that the eyes reading them are in league with our minds and emotions. Maybe because writing private, much more intimate, letters is an art of marrying our heart and mind ~ a very powerful and compelling combination. Perhaps, letters also give us a context of the society that the author and reader belong to ~ the age, moral standards, milieu. Through these written letters, we will also see how they defied traditional customs, how they struggled to fit two or more inconsistent truths, how they tried hard to establish their convictions amid the great transition of their times.

We are lucky to be part of this generation where we have access to these intimate self-portraits of great thinkers drawn through words ~ their sensibilities, idiosyncrasies, pleasures, guilt and perhaps universal view.

~

Amelia Earhart's radical view of marriage is as liberating as her historical air expedition across Atlantic ocean. I never knew Earhart that much before, except when I heard that line from New Radicals' song Someday We'll Know ~ ok, 90s kids lemme hear you sing it ~ whatever happened to Amelia Earhart!

Anyways, being a curious kid back then I searched the books and found out that she, aside from being an author, is the first woman pilot (aviatrix) who fly solo across the Atlantic. She also attempted to circumnavigate (fly around) the world but she disappeared over the Pacific Ocean in 1937. From the looks of it, she sees flying as a very liberating experience, which unsurprisingly becomes the backbone of her life conviction - freedom. More than a very independent spirit, Earhart also has this radical conviction about marriage. Written February 7, 1931, our letter today is written in the morning of her wedding to George Putnam, her publicist. Seeing marriage as a threat to her freedom, she started the letter directly emphasizing their deliberate discussion of sharing life together and managed to finish it with firmness and careful stress of her love for freedom. She drew a very brave set-up of marriage for her and her soon to be husband. 

There is by the way a film entitled Amelia (Mira Nair, 2009) starring Hilary Swank. You can check here

Also, Amelia refused to have her last name changed, so she continued using her name until the very end. 

Sources:

1. Amelia Earhart official website http://www.ameliaearhart.com/

2. Brainpickings: Amelia Earhart on Marriage http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2012/12/11/amelia-earhart-on-marriage/?utm_source=buffer&utm_campaign=Buffer&utm_content=bufferd6940&utm_medium=twitter

Journey Essentials (dos) ---> Correspondence box

My dear friends,

I am posting an open letter to you today so in case you are wondering what gift to give me this Christmas you need not do intensive research anymore (just assuming you will go that far! Hahaha!!) Anyways, I will not prolong your suffering and will go straight to the point. I am deeply, madly in love right now. And of course, as good friends you will help me any way possible to keep me feeling this way. Such sweet friends you really are <3  The source of my affection is this box below. I named it Correspondence Box. I have been in love with it since last week, so please be kind.

My sweet correspondence box

Correspondence box is not just any ordinary box, of course it is not. It contains all my stationeries, my colorful stickers, glue, envelopes of different sizes, post cards (oh my, can't help having goosebumps as I typed its contents) pens, craypas, little colored papers and the little wonderful things that are heavenly. Oh my, did I mention I am sooo in love?! So dear friends, if you want to make me swoon this Christmas, please help me add more content to my sweet Correspondence Box (my pet name for it is Corbie). You can get anything from stationery sets to postcards to specialty papers or stamps, anything that will make my Corbie fuller.

Swoon . . . 

Anyway, last Saturday I got a joyful surprise from the mailbox. Yes, you guessed it right! I had a little mail from Germany (insert an excited giggle). Do you know that feeling of lightness when you open an envelope which contains the excited greeting of a new friend? It is a most wonderful feeling to wake up to such a treat! Here it is ------------------------------------- > 

My friends, thank you for taking time to read this. And please remember to look at the stationeries section when you do your Christmas shopping!

Lots of love,

Joyce

Self-reflection: (chapter 2) a lesson on waiting

This week was full of adventures that I cannot even stop a moment to blog. It started with a holiday in the Philippines, so I decided to bike inside the campus with the goal that it will be the start of active physical regimen to break the sedentary lifestyle that I lead for quite a while now. So I cooked breakfast, went to the university to bike and I sweat a lot. Then the next day, I enrolled to the university. Then on Wednesday my classes began.

I am taking up Spanish language class and Anthropology. These subjects will be the focus of my life in the next 5 months. A letter from Germany arrived this morning, I am sooo excited!! Que bonito!

A lesson on waiting . . . Actually this phase of my life is also a difficult one. Life is not as it was before, it is getting harder and tougher. I have to hold tight to inspiring thoughts to get me through the rough patches. Yesterday, I had this amazing epiphany. I was waiting for ride home for at least thirty minutes (that's really long!) along commonwealth avenue. I stood there before sunset but long minutes passed and I could not get ride. Darkness started to paint the sky, the blue hue got inked by the black. I started to lose my patience. When will the darn ride arrive?


Then a warm pool of light greeted my eyes. It was hiding behind the rows of trees and buildings. Then it carefully climbed up, gracefully moving to her zenith, showing her perfect golden sphere. The moon shone brightly up in the sky, I was in awe. Maybe the whole point of endlessly waiting for ride is to see the beauty of the moon. And to take it in for a while. To appreciate its eternal grace but not to own it. To linger then to move on with my plan of getting home. To look at the bigger picture, perhaps it is good to wait a while because we will never know when we will witness such magic of nature, appreciate for a moment then we must move on, because we are expected to grow, fly and experience more. Who knows, maybe another full moon is waiting for us just around the corner as we fulfill our journey.


Vale la pena.

Pen pals and post cards

Still waiting for Deutsche Post to send me the address code so I can start picking potential pen pal, why is it taking so long? Am so excited to send snail mail and keep in touch with somebody abroad, fortunately I share this interest with Romina. At first I thought it is a silly idea to use the snail mail service in the age of electronic mails and mobile phones, but something about receiving real envelopes and letters written on paper using pen ink appeal to me. Maybe it is the same feeling that I derive from receiving birthday cards and christmas cards given to us by family and friends during that special occasion.

Also there is that wonderful feeling of excitement looking at the picture printed in post cards. It is a recent self-discovery actually. There is something about a printed picture, something about the message or dedication that is written in every back of a post card: the story of the place, an invitation to look and experience it personally or just the thought that someone thinks that you should see this wonderful place or maybe an event or a celebration. Unfortunately, both I and Romina think post cards here in the Philippines are very limited, or maybe we are looking in the wrong places. I hope we discover post cards shop where they have wonderful renditions of top tourists spot in the archipelago, colorful Philippine holidays/celebrations and maybe paintings done by Filipino artists.