This morning my friend Becky, with whom I correspond daily via email, shared with me her plans for keeping in touch with her nephew when he begins the next phase of his life as a college student. She has been aunty mom to this wonderful young man since his mother died when he was nearly 12 and his father had died when he was 8. She will send regular “care packages” and notes/letters to him. Of course, she will go with him to get him settled into the dorm suite he is sharing with two of his close friends. She will also be available via phone, text and email.
Although Becky and I daily use email we also, we still, on occasion, send hand written notes to each other We do both find that we appreciate the speed of email as opposed to sending letter via mail. The handwritten notes are usually brief. I write my with a fountain pen kept expressly for that purpose. I regret to say that my handwriting is not a work of art as is that of many people whom I know.
Most letters I now type. I write regular letters to a variety of people including my aged mother who, until her eyesight got so bad regularly wrote to me. I also write letters, which I send via snail mail to a number of other folks including some folks in jail.
Until fairly recently letter writing was the only way of keeping in touch with people who one could not personally visit on a regular basis. When I was growing up the telephone was reserved for local calls but even then only if one could place a call when others on the “partly line” were not using the phone or “listening in”. This left letter writing as the only way of keeping in touch. I do not recall getting many letters from my mother’s relatives in Ohio and Illinois although I do remember some irregular correspondence. Perhaps it was more regular than I knew of or now recall. When I stayed with my paternal grandparents there was a daily time to do “intellectual, spiritual and emotional chores”. After the farm chores and the evening meal was completed, Grandmother Fannie would announce that it was time to do our those intellectual, emotional and spiritual chores. The options, as I my memory recalls them, was that one could play music on the piano or other instruments I am sure (I did not play), read/study, write letter or, I suppose pray. I do not recall individual prayer as one of the options which makes sense. Goodness knows what the content of a prayer might have been for growing children.
Once I left home, initially as a member of the United States Navy for four years, letter writing was a regular way of keeping in touch with Grandmother, my parents, and my Aunt Pleasie and Uncle Harold. I have no idea why I did not write letters to many others. Of that group only my mother is now living and, as I mentioned, her eyesight no longer allows her to write. Two of my siblings keep fairly regular contact with me via email. My son also keeps in in touch via email. He and his mother keep his touch via phone.
On a daily basis I spend an average of two hours initiating and/or responding to emails and now text messages. Several times a week I will respond to letters via snail mail. I am not likely to pick up the phone very often although I frequently use the phone as a means of communication with clients and to conduct other business dealings. Even though I have now had a cell phone for many years on which I can talk for hours with no additional fees, it seldom occurs to me to pick up the phone just to chat with someone. I am much more comfortable with the written form of communication. Is one form of communication more effective than others? I have no idea. I just know that letter writing allows me the luxury of being more intentional about slowing down and sharing thoughts, concerns and ideas with another person. I still eagerly go to the mailbox daily. If, once the mail arrives, I have an open block of time I will respond that day to any letter that I receive.
I have long enjoyed reading published books of letters of famous people such as Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Mann, John Adams and Thomas Merton (just accidental that I immediately though of three famous people whose first name was Thomas)
There is a web site, the title of which I find quite amusing. It is “Artofmanliness.com” On this site in an article written by Bret and McKay “The Art of Letter Writing”. I have no idea of how the art of manliness differs from the art of womanness but bit that as it may, the McKays list the materials one needs for letter writing – a supply of fine stationary in various sizes, a fountain pen, wax and seal, and an elegant letter opener. I must confess that except for some blank note cards I do not have or use elegant stationary. I do use a fountain pen. My letter opener is likely to be a kitchen knife or one of those marketing openers some business has handed out at some conference or another.
I used to keep letters that I received. When I was getting ready to move last year I decided that no one, including my son, was likely to be interested in inheriting boxes and boxes of letters. I destroyed most of them after spending days and days rereading many of them. I also, at the same time, destroyed most of my journals. I kept a few, which my son will keep or throw out.
I had one letter from my father, which has somehow disappeared during one of the many moves I have made.
Times change and art forms change. Perhaps we will, like Hilary Clinton, have thousands of emails to sort through and decide if they need to be saved. At least the memory stick or other external storage drive will be more compact than paper and pen letters. Yet, there is a part of me which will still go to the mailbox and look for that now rare treasure – a handwritten, will thought out, personal note sharing news, ideas, questions and musings. Perhaps a week after I get a telephone call that someone dear to me has died, I will go to the mailbox and find a letter written the day before the person died. I will smile, smell the letter, imagine the person and with grateful tears read the missile as if it was the greatest treasure anyone could have left. This happened following the death of my grandmother Pickett.
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