letters we leave behind

How long has it been since you received a handwritten letter? Better still, how long since you sat down and wrote to someone you care about?

Ernest Hemingway made a great comment about writing letters. He had said, “… it’s such a swell way to … feel you’ve done something.” Indeed! It’s a great feeling.

In recent months, I’ve been making a concerted effort to increase the number of letters I write. When my mom was alive, I wrote to her with frequency. After she died, I completely quit writing letters even to my son. It was at least two years or so after my mom died that I began writing letters again, sporadically at best, but at least I was writing and mailing an occasional letter or postcard.

Recently, I was able to inspire a friend to write me a letter and what a delight — no, what a gift — to receive her letter. To read her feelings, her happenings, her beautiful way of appreciating her surroundings, was a treasure. And after that high tea I hosted for friends a couple weeks ago, two of the ladies wrote letters of appreciation by hand. Those two notes are still sitting prominently on my desk.

“Letter writing can be seen as a gift because someone has taken his/her time to write and think and express love.”  —Soraya Diase Coffelt

I’ve posted an occasional image in recent months that hint to my letter-writing. Sometimes I’ll begin writing in one of my own photo cards, and then need to add writing paper to finish all that I wish to say. Other times, I simply send off a quick note written on the back of one of my own postcards. A month or so ago, I sent my son a simple little notecard with a brief but encouraging message. I even wrote a letter to a member of our parliament (rather than a ubiquitous email) encouraging him to support another member of parliaments bill.

True, it takes longer to write a letter or note by hand but it’s far more meaningful for the recipient. Besides, it’s a far better way of spending time than scrolling on social media or watching a meaningless television show.

I have to admit that every time I seal up a letter or finish a postcard, I stand back and admire it with a feeling of warmth and accomplishment. Even excitement, imagining the recipient’s delight when they check their mail.

“How wonderful it is to be able to write someone a letter! To feel like conveying your thoughts to a person, to sit at your desk and pick up a pen, to put your thoughts into words like this is truly marvelous.”  — Haruki Murakami wrote that in Norwegian Wood.

“Become immortal. Write a letter. Write lots of letters. Write lots and lots of letters.” — Mike Lambert recently wrote that. And I liked what else he had to say, I’ve borrowed what he said and added my own little bits: While technology is rapidly replacing old/previous ways of doing things, I believe that writing by hand is important to stimulating our brain, reflecting & reasoning‚ creating ideas‚ and communicating with other people who matter to me. Thanks Mike.

“There is a charm to letters and cards that emails and smses can’t ever replicate, you cannot inhale them, drawing the fragrance of the place they have been mailed from, the feel of paper in your hand bearing the weight of the words contained within. You cannot rub your fingers over the paper and visualise the sender, seated at a table, writing, perhaps with a smile on their lips or a frown splitting the brow. You can’t see the pressure of the pen on the reverse of the page and imagine the mood the person might have been in when he or she was writing it. Smiley face icons cannot hope to replace words thought out carefully in order to put a smile on the other person’s face, the pressure of the pen, the sharpness or the laxity of the handwriting telling stories about the frame of mind of the writer, the smudges on the sheets of paper telling their own stories, blotches where tears might have fallen, hastily scratched out words where another would have been more appropriate, stories that the writer of the letter might not have intended to communicate. I have letters wrapped up in a soft muslin cloth, letters that are unsigned, tied up with a ribbon which I had once used to hold my soft, brown hair in place, and which had been gently untied by the writer of those letters. Occasionally, I unwrap them and breathe them in, knowing that the molecules from the hand that wrote them might still be scattered on the surface of the paper, a hand that is long dead.”
–Kiran Manral, The Face at the Window

Although I’m deliberating about letter-writing in this post, I also feel strongly that blogs still matter in 2019, maybe even more than ever. Like letter-writing, personal blogs can be important too. So before I wrap up my feelings on letters, here’s a great blog post to share with you, Why Your Own Small Corner of the Internet is Going to Make the World a Better Place.

Two years ago when we downsized and I went through our possessions with a fine tooth comb, deciding what few things we would retain, can you guess what I kept? I kept all the letters my mother had received from me (and had saved in a dresser drawer). I also kept every single piece of paper on which she wrote me notes, messages, or recipes. Those, even above photographs, are my most treasured belongings.

“Letters are among the most significant memorial a person can leave behind them.”  –Johann Wolfgang von Goethe