The cover for the Post Secret book is brown, like mailing paper, with a canceled postcard stamp in the corner. The book is based on Post Secret blog which is a website where people mail in their secrets anonymously.
The Post Secret blog and book began with an idea of Frank Warren’s for a community art project. He handed out postcards and told people to write down a secret they’d never told anyone and to mail it to him anonymously. Warren posted the cards on his website. According to the book cover, the project has “grown into a global phenomenon, exposing our individual aspirations, fantasies, and frailties – our common humanity.”
The postcards are often works of art themselves. Some are completely handmade, or photo. Others are bought cards altered with collage, pen and ink, or magic markers. The secrets vary from funny, to heartbreaking, to scary, and even disturbing.
Some of the secrets chosen for the Post Secret book are:
“I wish my parents could see me for what I am instead of what I didn’t become.”
“Sometimes I wish I had lung cancer so my mom would quit smoking.”
“I give decaf to customers who are rude to me.” (written on part of a Starbucks cup)
“I leave poetry in library books.”
“Once I was asked by a doctor if I was hearing voices. The voice inside my head shouted TELL HIM NO!”
“I still haven’t told my father that I have the same disease that killed my mother.”
“I only smoke Pall Mall cigarettes so I can remember you 40 times a day.”
I’m not sure what I think of the book. It’s certainly not for children. On one hand, it’s fascinating to read these insights into other people’s lives. But they are so raw, and intimate. It’s hard to read about the pain people are going through. There are secrets concerning religious questioning, sexual identity, eating disorders, abuse, and addictions. For me, it’s hard to read more than a few of these postcards at a time. But it do think the awareness that we all harbor secrets may be healing, and maybe help us all treat our fellow humans a little gentler.
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