“The neighbors give me parsley.”
“Your spring rolls are divine.”
“I told you that you have beautiful butterflies.”
On Halloween this year, 100 yellow signs were placed in random order on lawns and windows dotted around St. Paul Midway. Together they form a 100-line poem titled “Love Letters Halfway,” which aims to convey a positive message to neighbors during difficult times.
As Saint Paul Havona artist Sullivan Janzen said, the project “started out like a dream, believe it or not.”
Before the coronavirus pandemic broke out, she dreamed that she was walking around the neighborhood and saw something like a celestial writer in the clouds writing messages over people’s homes about how big their neighbors are or that their puppy was missing.
“This was all kind of my brain’s way of processing a lot of the conversations that were happening online in the Hamline Midway Neighbors Facebook group,” she said. “But I never thought about what the dream was about until I was able to get rid of it, as several days had passed. I was driving down the street and all of a sudden I saw a house that was in a dream, and I was very curious, for example, why this dream does not let me go so much?
“I finally realized, ‘I think I have to do something about it. I think I should somehow tell the story of our area, ”she said.
Sullivan Jenzen contacted then-Hamline Midway Coalition director Keith Madge and proposed an idea for the poem. He was born three years later thanks to a grant from the Minnesota State Arts Council.
“I just wanted the project to be a moment when a person, walking down the street and faced with this text, can stop and experience a moment of joy even on a really difficult day,” said Sullivan Janzen.
Sullivan Janzen launched a Google form where Midway residents could tell a story or write what they liked about their area. Then she turned their words into a poem.
“I was able to simply convey all the love that people showed for each other in the lines of the poem,” she said.
Sullivan Janzen also commissioned artists to build six small free libraries for the area. These libraries now house small works of art by local artists that were used during the pandemic for everything from distributing canned food to distributing bicycle helmets.
“I received confirmation that humanity still exists, even when you cannot be together,” said Sullivan Janzen.
The signs will be valid until January 10th. Janzen hopes to have a picnic with all the signs and neighbors in one place by summer.
Visit the Hamlinemidway.org/lovelettersforthemidway project website for more information and sign locations.
