During the past few weeks I've returned to the practice of composing and sending handwritten letters and cards to friends and family members.  Exploring this long lost technique has a sense of nostalgia, but also a sense of artistic prose. Like books and newspapers, you can hold a letter, and I like that a lot. But unlike edited material you see exactly what got written in the moment of composition. And it's not like email, which got cut and pasted or deleted or copied and rearranged on the page.  You get real time writing, and yes it's asynchronous like email, but in a more pedestrian way that exaggerates the weight of its meaning.


I think of my letter as being a surprise when a loved one finds it in the mailbox. I imagine the opening, the posture of curiosity. Does s/he wait and sit with it, or do they open it on the spot and read it standing up?  Does she call her family over and say "Look!  It's a letter from Nancy," or maybe just quietly smile, then read it again.  A letter can be shared ~ or not. It is probably read again ~ and again.  Perhaps its set on the mantel or shelf for awhile.


The cards and letters I've received are often displayed for awhile. Sometimes the smallest little handwritten thank-you note feels like a sweet little bouquet of forget-me-nots. But like flowers, they need to move on eventually.  Unlike flowers, they get saved in a special letters box I've owned since the 1980's. If that box gets too full, which takes a few years now, as opposed to every year during the last century, I pull all the letters out and prepare them for storage.  Maybe you think I mean I browse and re-read them, tidy the stack right-side-up, and place them in chronological order, but no, sorry, I shove the whole stack as one into a paper bag, fold the top over it and write with a Sharpie:  "Cards n Letters 2011." Not to say they aren't important!  Every piece of handheld personal mail nowadays is to me, a special gift. It means someone thought of me in a quiet moment, and took the time to say so, daring to hand write unedited material and trust me with the outcome.


Letters can be risky. I had an old friend who knew he wasn't a good speller but he wrote letters now and then without embarrassment.  Other friends who had trouble spelling or thought their handwriting messy couldn't imagine taking the risk of writing a letter, but they might call to say hi or give me some news, or just sign a birthday card now and then. I've never judged people by their handwriting or spelling, but have always appreciated seeing their letter arrive. I do have an internal spell-checker, which is a blessing and a curse, but my writing runs faster than my brain sometimes, and I goof up and make spelling errors to. During my ten years as a public school teacher I taught young children how to write, deciphered their handwriting and pre-phonetic spelling upside down from across their little desks. Later I worked in a hospital setting and was able to read doctors' orders AKA handwriting ~ let that be a guarantee, I can read yours, even if your hand gets wobbly and you drop a letter too, in your elder years.


I have letters written by my grandmother to her daughter and to some of her women friends during the 1930's and 40's, some which read like replies to letters I don't have, but I can interpolate the original letters from these. At that time, letters were not nearly as formal as in the prior century; Grandma's and her friends' could stand as complete conversations. This remained somewhat true even after telephones were in place, and expensive long distance calling costs were rung up per minute. Before email and "free" nationwide calling, love affairs were conducted ~ or ended ~ in longhand and on stationery. Old letters reveal topics such as funeral planning, birthday party invitations and family fights.  Writers philosophized together, discussed the books they were reading, sent good news and bad, described their crops, their wardrobes, their children's adventures, and Saturday's dinner menu. They surmised the well-being of their friends or family members by the frequency of letters; if Nina hadn't heard from Edna, for example, she would write to her and express her heartfelt concern. 


Marshall McLuhan would enjoy my saying that he gave us the meme, "The medium is the message." For me, handwritten letters, as a medium, give the message that I am holding these moments specifically for this person. My mind, my body, my hands are in one place on one piece of paper to convey my thoughts only to this person. I will seal it in a private envelope and deliberately name the person and write their postal address, which may be their actual home, thus spend a moment thinking of their place of abode. I'll place postage on it, carry it somewhere and deliver it personally to the USPS for personal delivery. When I use digital media, whether it be email, blog, Facebook or Twitter, I can make it appear to be written to one person individually, but it might be going to others in blind copy; it could also live in my sent mail for awhile and then be shown or forwarded to someone else, and the same is true as it resides in the recipient's inbox. It lives on a server, it's available indefinitely, whether I know where it is or not. In essence, it's public. Would I write in the same manner as I do on paper? No, and not only because it's public, but also, I don't have a delete key. I cannot copy and paste. I could draft and save a handwritten letter I suppose, as I do some email missives, but I don't. I have a sincere intention to communicate from the heart. I may scribble a word or letter, and might insert a phrase with a little uppy arrow like this ^ and in that case, the person sees, "Oh, Nancy thought of this later."  But in email, who knows how many times I rewrote the darn thing, how careful I was, and whether I re-read it for meaning, agonized over the expression of emotion or consideration? Even I wouldn't know, it all happened so fast and flew across the ether with one click on my track pad.


On the other hand, because our practice of communicating has been via email for more than 25 years now, how much can the average person really say in a handwritten letter? Has the one-off itself changed because of its decline? Do younger generations learn, and do boomers remember how it feels to spin it from the head and heart straight to the hand?  In my experience, email formalized my personal letters to friends and family a great deal. Perhaps just the act of typing caused some of that, but more likely, the delete key. I even forgot how to be silly, to doodle, joke, enjoy artistic license during all those more formal notes.


Maybe you've received a handwritten letter lately? Maybe you'll receive one soon, from me or someone else. I do intend to continue the practice because I  believe the tactile experience brings my muse a little closer to the surface. Additionally, the pleasure of composing my thoughts and feelings in my own handwriting is akin to savoring slow food. And lastly, I learned a few years ago that the younger generations were already saying that email is for old people, so I thought I'd try something new!