My friend Wendy has a passion for letters. (Check out her letter-writing website.) It's a passion she wants to encourage in everyone, and I'm right there with her. Our instant-gratification techno-crazy world is robbing us of one of the most soul-enriching pleasures known to humans. Writing and receiving letters, real ink-and-paper letters, should never be replaced by email, however handy it is. To paraphrase Miss Manners, no one ever clutched an email close to her heart, or with trembling fingers traced an "I love you" on the screen. (Okay, yes, some people probably do these things, but you get my point, I'm sure.)
When my mother was diagnosed with lung cancer and going through chemo, Wendy wrote her some letters, though they didn't know each other at all. You can't imagine how much pleasure my mom got from those simple, friendly, chatty letters, and how grateful she was for Wendy's thoughtfulness. It doesn't take much effort to write a few lines, put them in an envelope, find a cute stamp, make someone smile. My mom got into email a couple of years before she died, and reading over her brief emails does make me smile. But they don't capture her essence like the handwritten letters I have from her. No amount of typed LOLs could ever match one handwritten "Ha!" I love her graceful and unique handwriting with its flamboyant upward swoop at the end of words (that's a bit of a Mom-letter shown above), although she didn't like it herself and compared it to her own mother's impeccable copperplate writing. I told Mom once that her handwriting looked like the way she bowled, her arm sweeping up and hanging in the air above her head until the ball reached the pins. I'll pass those few letters down to my nieces to remember their grandmother by. What memories will your own letters evoke in your friends and family? Drop them a note today, tell them what your world looks like on the first Saturday of the new year.
Oh, what a wonderful post, and I am smiling that I came across it just now, as one of the pieces I currently have in progress is an old fashioned stationary box! I just love writing letters, especially using beautiful pens (venetian glass pens are a favorite) and unusual inks, then sealing the envelope with stamped wax. It's been awhile since I've found the time, but is a definite intention for the New Year!
And how wonderful that you are passing your Mother's letters on to your nieces too.
One of my absolute favorite books is "Between Ourselves: Letters Between Mothers and Daughters 1750-1982" - a compilation spanning over 200 years of written correspondence between mothers and daughters, with many of the letters touching on the issues of that particular time.
Thanks so much for the serendipitous post - You're inspiring me to get busy and complete that stationary box. :)
~ Carolee
Posted by: carolee clark | January 04, 2009 at 06:03 AM
Oh, Carolee, please do come back and post a link to that box when it's done, will you? And thanks for the book recommendation too!
Posted by: Lunaea | January 04, 2009 at 09:23 AM