An Ode to Flags on Mailboxes

Unexpected gratitude for the oft overlooked

The following recounts an exchange one evening at my family’s dinner table during our nightly ritual of sharing a “grateful” before we eat.

Me: “Tonight I feel deeply grateful for flags on mailboxes.”

My family: Blank stares

Me: Slightly emotionally “On my walk this morning, as I passed house after house, I saw the little red flags tucked against their metal boxes and felt overwhelmed by gratitude. All we have to do when we want to mail a letter is pop it in the box and lift the flag. I think that is pretty cool, and I don’t think I have appreciated them enough. It’s like we raise a little flag to say, ‘hello postal worker! I have something for you.’ They answer the call, post the letter and put down the flag. How awesome is that?!

My kids: Perhaps a bit guarded… “Cool, Mom?!”

My husband: gave my hand a little squeeze. 

It was the middle of Covid, and I was feeling lots of things - one of them was apparently a very emotional connection to mailbox flags and the postal workers who tend them. 

But it did get me thinking about gratitude and what I feel grateful for on a daily basis. I often gravitate to the obvious - my health, my family’s health, safe travel, a good night’s sleep, a beautiful run. Sometimes though, it feels good to venture beyond those things and to consider things we may overlook. 

In Sally Rooney’s book Beautiful World, Where Are You, a concept that has stayed with me is a practice that one of the characters adopts for a short period during the book where she writes about a single thing for which she is grateful each day. Not five things, not three things, but one thing, and she writes about it deeply - how it made her feel, what it was and why it struck her. It’s a practice that connects her to her world in unexpected ways and gets her to dig below the surface into why certain things feel meaningful. Years later, she looks back at her journal and can’t believe some of the things she wrote, her observations, the language she conjured to realize deep connection. 

I love this idea.

For someone who is a proverbial “it depends” type of person, I have real difficulty choosing just one thing (i.e., favorite book, hat, movie, food…). These distinctions feel overwhelming for me. This feels like a practice that I would like to adopt, especially if I can choose a different thing every day. For me, the art (and the discipline) of choosing just one thing for which I feel deep gratitude on any given day feels like an important practice and one in line with this idea of noticing. 

I was able to do it this day several years ago with mailbox flags, I am sure I could do it again. 

In recounting this story to a Canadian friend, originally from the UK, he was struck. “Really,” he said, “you can post letters directly from your home mailbox?” Apparently post around the globe does not work in the same way. And now that I think of it, I didn’t have a flag on my box growing up in a different part of the country. This gives me even more reason to be deeply grateful for these tiny flags - so much so that I find it worthy of a mini “ode”

Sturdy little flag 
tucked by your box
Patiently you wait
Eager for a date.

We lift you when needed
Postman, take note!
A letter to send
thank you, dear friend.

I don't say it enough
Perhaps, maybe never
But now that I see,
For you grateful I'll be.

I would love to hear about the unexpected things (maybe they feel random or often overlooked) that you feel grateful for.