The joys and sorrows of fan mail
Sending a cold email — especially to someone you admire — is a modern leap of faith. You want to strike the right tone: complimentary, brief, earnest. You delete an exclamation point and re-add it two seconds later. No one wants to sound unhinged, but you don’t want to come across as Serious, either.
The beauty of fan mail, or any letter we expect to go unanswered, is that it gives form and intention to our thoughts. It’s an exercise in being direct, even if the person you’re directing your energy toward never sees it. This is why we pen letters to our future and past selves, our corporate overlords, God. Also: people we secretly (or not so secretly) want to become. How did they get that way? How can we get that way, too?
And then one day, weeks after you’ve forgotten about that complimentary (but brief, earnest, not too effusive but still medium-level effusive) letter, you receive a reply. Or at least that’s what happened to Michael Sippey when, in fifth grade, he came home from school to find a note from astronaut and senator John Glenn:
Inside was a two page, single-spaced typed response, signed by the Senator. “Dear Michael,” it began. I could barely breathe.
Senator Glenn described his mission aboard Friendship 7: the feeling of takeoff, the moment of weightlessness, what it was like to see the sun set…
