What a card!
EVER IN TUNE with the changing emotional zeitgeist, Hallmark has just introduced a new line of greeting cards: the “Journeys” series. “Welcome to the new normal,” the Hallmark website’s Journeys page announces. Then it explains the four categories of cards. There’s “Give Hope” (for those awaiting test results, having surgery or undergoing chemo); “Show Support” (for coming out of the closet, addressing addiction or quitting bad habits); “Help Cope” (for infertility, miscarriage or caring for an aging parent); and “Life Spirits” (for divorce, job loss, depression or “leaving a bad situation”).
We can learn a lot from these cards -- and not just that coming out falls into the same category as fighting addiction (who knew?). By expressing thoughts that leave many of us tongued-tied, embarrassed or desperate to run out of the room, a Journeys card not only does life’s hard work for us, it gives us permission to stick our noses in other people’s business and actually get credit for being thoughtful.
Where we once felt obligated to avoid the subject of, say, abject failure (at least in the presence of the one who failed), we can now send a card that reads: “I’m sorry about the way things turned out. I believe in you as much as ever ... I hope you do too.” Then we can go back to avoidance.
There are plenty of others to choose from. Like this: “When dark clouds hang over your head day after day, how do you build a rainbow?” The answer? (Open the card, open the card!) “One color at a time.” Awww. That’s not only sweet, you could use it for lots of situations, including (because there’s a rainbow reference) coming out! So if you know a newly out gay person who just ran his company into the ground, consider that a two-fer.
The beauty of Journeys cards -- pastel-hued and written in the looping calligraphy you see in the opening credits of reality shows about weddings -- is how specific they are. There’s a 12-step card ( “You didn’t just turn it over, you really turned it around”) and an infertility card ( “I wish I could make things happen for you the way you want them to. I know how much a child would mean to you”). There are cards for “hair loss due to treatments” and thank-you notes for hospice workers (helpful hint: Buy these ahead of time).
Unfortunately (well, maybe not), none of the Journeys cards seemed appropriate for anyone I know. But I discovered that there’s nothing like a little sugar-coated schadenfreude to get the creative juices flowing. Before I knew it, I was composing my own. On the cover: “Sometimes in good times we lose sight of the bad times. We laugh. We dance. We take out zero-interest real estate loans.” Inside: “The best form of closure is foreclosure. You’re on your way!”
SEE, ANYONE COULD do it. And why not? We used to send highly personalized greetings using that now-arcane object known as the blank card. I say arcane because lately the blank spaces are all filled with gooey verses about “true friendship” or pretentious Rumi quotes. This hogs space, making it impossible to compose a coherent message (try sending Grandma something that says, “Thank you for the sweater/You know who you are/you are the shining star/It fits perfectly!”). It also enables an already virulent epidemic of verbal laziness.
Maybe our epistolary resources have been exhausted by the demands of e-mail and text messaging, but hardly anyone writes his own messages anymore, at least not on actual paper. From custom-printed holiday cards the senders don’t even bother to sign to e-cards with prewritten greetings, we now see writing a note the same way we see housework, child care and personal grooming. Too busy or too inept to do the work ourselves, we contract it out.
Of course, the Hallmark folks have been cashing in on our laziness in one form or another for 100 years. With Journeys, they’ve also caught us teetering on the cusp of another important marketing moment in the “new normal”: the devaluation of privacy.
Confession, it turns out, is our primary form of self-expression. Teenagers who once hid their diaries from their parents now think nothing of posting their innermost thoughts on MySpace. Domestic disputes that we once hoped the neighbors wouldn’t overhear are now an occasion to try to get on the “Dr. Phil” show. Combine this obsession with exhibitionism and the grateful willingness to let someone else do it, and pretty soon someone is purchasing a card that tackles her best friend’s eating disorder and maybe even her transgendered neighbor’s restless leg syndrome.
There’s more. If Hallmark can empower a holiday like National Secretary’s Day (now known as Administrative Professionals Day), surely we’re only a few short years from National Bottoming Out Day, and even bigger sales for Journeys cards. Because when you care enough to send the very best, you might as well rub it in.
