Good evening,

I hope this e-mail finds you doing quite well.

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It’s a hot one in NYC, and I’m sitting here in my room, watching my air conditioner quietly blinking its red light. Maybe it wants its filter changed? I’m too far away to see what the red light means.

Anyway, when I’m done sending this letter, I will go check it out...

Last year, I tweeted about an imaginary device:

“my fantasy is giving my friends a small wooden box where inside you can see a green light. i’ll tell them to place it somewhere inside their homes. when i’ve clocked into my room, the green light goes on. they can tell i’m at home. when i leave my room, the green light goes off”

In other words, my friends will easily be able to tell (because my light is on inside the wooden box) that I’m home, safe in my room. What I’m doing there is besides the point.

Knowing when I’m in my room is quite personal information… but it’s also abstracted enough to allow some imagination from my friends… they might think, “I’m glad Laurel is home, in her room. What is she up to in her room?” Most of the time I’ll be sleeping.

But since I’m only giving these boxes to my good friends, maybe it provides some context that’s like texture... for instance, if I am chatting online with my friend, this friend can now picture me more accurately—at peace in my room.

Recently I realized an extended fantasy. Instead of just a single light representing one person, I want a small row of lights, one for each of my friends. Each light would be a different color, symbolizing each friend. I could picture these small lights near the entrance to my house, near the key rack, so that every time I come or go, I can check where my friends are at.

Similar locating friends or family devices have been described in fiction, like in Harry Potter... I’m remembering a clock in the Weasley household whose multiple clock hands (one for each family member) spin to show each person’s whereabouts (home, school, work, traveling, etc.)

While clock makes some sense, especially within the world of Harry Potter, I prefer light... I like thinking about light as a symbol of friendship.

In his book The Four Loves, C.S. Lewis describes…

“In each of my friends there is something that only some other friend can fully bring out. By myself I am not large enough to call the whole person into activity; I want other lights other than my own to show all my friend’s facets...”

In technological devices, usually light (like on a computer or a wifi router) means we’re powered ON and connected to the greater network. But what if we started using light as a symbol for the individual human instead?

I imagine how nice it would be to see my friends’ lights turning on. Maybe earlier that day we had all hung out somewhere together in the city, and somehow I returned home before all my friends. I’d be excited to see my people returning safely home, one by one, my row of lights gradually all turning from off to on.

I wanted to end with a practice, which I learned from a very good friend:

Let your friends know when you’re thinking about them.

This might sound pretty simple. But like most good practices, when done consistently and genuinely, it can be quite powerful!

So, whenever I fondly recall a friend, or remember something particularly special with them... I let them know absolutely as soon as possible. It usually doesn’t need to be a long or detailed message (which I might feel compelled to write, given the distance or time since last communication that separates us), but instead a simple one. Simple, present, and shining... like the "on" and "off" of a light.

Maybe it’s like my friend’s light shined on in my life, and I wanted to make sure my friend had a chance to experience the reflection.

Love is when someone takes time to tell you who you are

to reflect your light.

You can see more about my idea for the “green light” in the PDF version of my zine “green light goes” published by Wish Books last fall.

Anyway, I hope you’ve enjoyed this email, which has been 972 words in length.

Also, this text is part of a larger project, which I hope to be sharing next time.

See you on the other side, blinking light,

Laurel

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