And when it does, I know I'm in for a treat: a real letter. Not an email, not a rapid-fire, typed-with-one-thumb-on-a-tiny-keyboard communication, but a real letter, thoughtfully written by someone who had something worthwhile to communicate and took the trouble to shape it into words of more than one syllable.
Our modern-day culture streamlines our interactions with each other into bite-sized encounters. But we trim the beauty when we cut the fat. The case for writing old-fashioned letters is the case for slowing down. For doing a thing deliberately and allowing space for thoughtfulness to bloom. The practice makes us intentional because it requires a little more of us, even if the note we’re writing is only a short one.
A letter always arrives from the past. There is a waiting – a forced patience – built into the art of letter-writing. We wait for a letter to arrive. We wait for a reply. In the time it takes for the letter to reach its destination, anything can happen: births, deaths, and marriages.
There’s nothing nicer than opening the mailbox and seeing something friendly, something that’s not a bill or trying to sell you something. Think about being on the receiving end of a handwritten letter, actually opening the envelope, looking at the stamp, feeling the paper and seeing the written word — it's everything. Doesn’t it make you feel a bit special? Someone took the time to write to you. They value you. You can give that gift to others, too, because here's something I've noticed: people really do like having something to hold. Hold onto that thought!
