HOLLY NADLER

508-274-2329

(hollynadler@gmail.com)

Has anyone out there ever experienced Post Office Post Pile Stress Disorder, otherwise known as POPPSD? This occurs when you’ve been away from your Island mailbox for a month or more over the winter.

Immediately upon your return, you feel obligated to pick up your cinder-block-sized stack of mail. It’s imperative, like following the Ten Commandments, or sending in your tax returns, registering your dog and tithing part of your income to Habitat for Humanity or the Society of the Little Flower.

After four weeks in California, I came home to the Vineyard, but day after day went by without a visit to the Oak Bluffs Post Office. As you know, anything you postpone builds up a bigger and more pathological resistance to following through. You become almost phobic about this particular piece of business. Even scribbling it once again on your morning To Do list causes your hands to shake and your skin to grow cold and clammy. I imagine some victims of long-running cases of POPPSD have actually given up the struggle and moved to a new town with a new address, a new mailbox and a fresh lease on life.

I regarded my own unclaimed mail with fear and loathing for several reasons. First, I knew — as all freelance writers tend to do, we whose imaginations run, not to plot points or magazine ideas, but to mental ledgers of monies owed us — that no payments were due in the weeks I’d been away. That meant all incentive to pick up the mail was gone. All that remained in the dreaded, rubber-banded stack of mail so heavy that, if thrown in the garden, would collapse a colony of gophers, was, of course, bills, junk mail and catalogues. Who needs bills, junk mail and catalogues, particularly four — now five, now six — weeks of ’em?

I set the date for facing down my POPPSD for last Monday, first treating myself to lunch at the Slice of Life with a dear friend, a gallery owner in Oak Bluffs. One of the subjects we discussed was spirit guides. My friend has enough to fill the Tabernacle. They include her grandparents, mother, an Indian shaman, friends who’ve died, a white pony from her childhood, and all her dead dogs. My own spirit guides you could fit in a booth at Linda Jean’s and still have room for a fat lady singing. They are, as follows: my great-grandma Olga, my dad, our cocker spaniel, Chopper who went to the Great Feeding Bowl in 2005 and is buried over the split rail fence from our home in East Chop and . . . that’s it.

But apparently it’s enough.

When I finally asked for and received TWO giant wads of mail, I lugged them to Jack’s truck and beseeched my spirit guides to magically insert a check inside the bundles. Back at home, I dumped the piles on the dining room table, pried off the many rubber bands from both sets and began stacking pure junk — catalogues, requests for money, et cetera — on one side and a few welcome items — copies of The New Yorker, the UU World’s recent journal and Charlie’s Bostonia — on the other. And then . . . what’s this? I spotted a green envelope from the Writer’s Guild of America. Hmm. I hadn’t seen one of those babies in a long time, but they generally boded something good. Sure enough, inside I found a residual payment from a Laverne & Shirley episode that I wrote back in 1976. The amount? $5.96.

Granted it’s not a lot. It wouldn’t have fed the group of spirit guides in that booth at Linda Jean’s and it certainly wouldn’t have stretched very far for the fat lady. But I was exhilarated to know my celestial guardians had come through for me. Ask and It Is Given. Yes indeed-y! Grandma Olga, Dad and Chopper were telling me, “It’s a little tight over here on This Side — the recession is beyond global — but we’re doing our best. We hear you! We love you! And here’s $5.96 to prove it.”

So go ahead, ask. You’ll get it in some shape or form.

For your calendar: The Oak Bluffs Town Meeting is Tuesday, April 13. The meeting will start at 7 p.m. at the high school. The mark-your-ballot additional override vote on Thursday, April 15 will take place from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. at the Oak Bluffs Public Library.

Friends of Barbara Lehman are having a Jimmy Buffet Night for her on April 16 starting at 6 p.m. at the P.A. Club. There will be a Best Parrot Head Costume contest, a silent auction and door prizes. The Stingrays will be performing. Guests are asked to bring a potluck dish. Tickets are $20 and available from Barbara Phillips, Debbie Rogers and Betsy Mcdonald. A limited number may also be purchased at the door. Brenda has almost completed chemotherapy for breast cancer and is facing six weeks of radiation.

At the Oak Bluffs School, the eighth grade graduation is scheduled for Wednesday, June 16, and the kindergarten orientation will take place on Wednesday, April 29 at 6:30 p.m.