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Remember back in the day when the mailbox didn’t consist solely of junk? When people still got dreaded bills in the mail, but also got something no one knows or seems to care about anymore – a personal letter? Not from a bank or some company trying to get your business. But a real letter. One that might have matching paper and envelopes – maybe even a scent of lavender or rose! If you didn’t recognize the handwriting, you looked at the stamp to see if you could discern where it was from. A return address made your heart bounce as you looked forward to hearing about the life of someone you knew well, or were just beginning to. No return address increased the deliciousness of how this mystery made us feel. Yet all this “back in the day” stuff only really ended in the late 90s. How far and how fast we have come. And how willingly we threw the past and its customs away; all in the name of bigger, better and faster. But is our new personal communication really any of those things?
With letters, we were treated to a few pages crammed with news, jokes and the business of the day. We were filled with a sense of how our friend or family member lived – what their experiences were and how they reacted to the world around them. We reacted too.
Inside the letter might be a few photos, instead of a link where we can download vacation pictures if we so chose; the same link hundreds of others have access to. But these letters? They were really meant for us, as were the photos. The back of the photo contained a handwritten note of where it was taken, what the date was and who was in it. And maybe a funny or poignant comment that brought the picture to life even more.
We opened the letter carefully, because we kept them. Maybe in a special box or cupboard so that when we got older, we could open up a treasure trove of memories and tangible proof that we mattered enough to someone that they spent the time and money to compose and mail a letter to us. Years later we get to touch the paper, put our noses to its scent and trace our fingers around the handwriting of an old friend or, perhaps, someone long gone. Their fingerprints are on this paper, maybe even their spit on the envelope or stamp. They touched this paper, as we do now. DNA to DNA.
We reopen our own years gone by when we read about what music was being played, the fashions displayed in photos and news and views of the writer, from politics to pop culture. Letters remain historical treasures, as well as personal ones. There’s no better way to understand times past by reading the intimate, written thoughts of a person experiencing them as they happened. Children grow older, and do so we. Yet letters can capture the very essence of lives lived, at the moment we all lived them. How easily we have given up this glorious path to our past.
I have a small collection of letters, hidden away in an attic in Ireland. I’ll pick them up this summer, having not seen them in nearly two decades. They are from friends and relatives back when we were all in our late teens and early 20s. They and I were living in a mish-mash of exiting and exotic countries as we all spread our wings for the first time. Afterward, some of us went back to living on our beautiful Emerald Isle, with new stories of college, of new jobs, of crazy nights out and young men we imagined dating. Then the time came for others – including me – to make a life elsewhere. Opening these letters once again this summer will be a time capsule of sorts. I’ll relive days gone by, even see what stamps were being used and how much they cost. What were we talking about back then? Did our dreams come true? Look at our handwriting!
I’ve mostly give up on letter writing today. Well, until now. Now I’m going to restart the art of taking a pen, and pouring my life out on paper. Then I’ll mail it to someone and hope they do the same. I’ll do this every month. Don't I have twenty minutes every month? I can begin my own time capsule again, so I can capture moments in life that a text or email couldn’t even come close to. Don't misunderstand - emails and texts are great ways to reach out. Blogs offer us an audience for everything we want to say. I want to communicate differently- again! I’m busy, but I’m also lazy. So are you, even though you don’t see it that way. Why wait for something that can take days in the mail when a text connects us in seconds? Here's why: waiting is good. We appreciate something when we wait for it. It tantalizes us. Looking in the mail is titillating, wondering if some day - some strange and unfamiliar day – we might get a letter from someone, so we can breathe in and feel the life lived by another person living far, far away.
We’ll get to save that feeling so that years down the road, our memories are not some vast haze of unimportant texts and trivial emails that didn’t really warrant the time spent sending them. No, a letter can leave an imprint on us like no other. So I’m resurrecting my pen and paper and finding that lost art again. Because it’s only lost when we don't take the time to find it. I’m going to substitute ease for effort so that perhaps decades from now, I can reopen and hold a paper heirloom in my very hands - one of hopes long past, of trials and troubles, and wishes and dreams that really did come true.
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Great article, Susan! From one writer to another, I get it. I too lament the lost art of writing letters. I used to print off email letters and save them in a photo album for the same purpose of saving the good ones and cherishing communication with loved ones. But as you said, we lose the ability or the willingness to take the time to do these things. I do still have a few choice friends I send care packages to now and again, and always include a handwritten note. The items often are gifts for a birthday or recent celebration, but there always is something random that I "just couldn't resist sending." Some of these friends send me care packages, and often it's those random items we end up really cherishing. The things that make us laugh, or say to us, "I know you, and I think you'll like this even if it's a bit weird." Just like letters, it can convey the same effect. Mind you, not in the same way as the letters do...especially to someone who loves the written word like we do, but it's something.
March 11, 2011 - 10:43amThis Comment