You’ve Got Mail

You've got mail

If you know anything about me, you know that I adore everything techno-gadgety.  It’s no secret I love surfing the net to sitting on the beach (hate sand in my swimsuit) or that I have had a long standing love-affair of sorts with my MacBook.  And given the choice of a brand new MacBook Pro or a Louis Vuitton handbag, I probably would need a month of therapy to make the decision.  But in this speedy-got-to-have-it-now society that we live in, I can’t help but miss one simple pleasure that all this is replacing… the receipt of the Hand Written Letter.

These days when you have a question or a thought to share, you dial your friend on your cell phone (no more long distance charges), send them an abbreviated text message, or perhaps a quick line or two in an email.  As if by magic, your reply will be there instantly… a voice-mail, a beeping notice of your text reply, or email in your virtual inbox.  Immediate gratification.  We just have to have it now.

But there’s something to be said for waiting, for the excitement of anticipation, for having something to look forward to.  There’s the pleasure of receiving something tactile not digital and knowing the extra effort the sender put into it… time, thought, love.  No less precious than the expression of love drawn in crayons by a five year old is the hand written letter.  Whether to convey affection, sympathy, thanks or good news each evoke a feeling of warmth, love and importance that can’t be duplicated electronically.

From the heart

Maybe it’s the ink like an abstract painting lining the page or the handwriting, as unique and personal as one’s own fingerprints or maybe it’s just knowing that the sender took the time to compose their thoughts to share with just you.  It’s letters that become keepsakes stacked in piles and tied by ribbons…who does that with emails?

No doubt that part of the romanticism of the written letter is the handwriting… but the temptation is there still to type the letter.  After all, who can read my handwriting anymore?  Does anyone practice penmanship?  As much as you are embarrassed by your own poor penmanship, part of the fun is trying to decipher and decode the uneven lines, or grandmother’s shaky hand.  That makes it even more precious to me.

Sincerely...

In her book, Gift of a Letter: Giving the Gift of Ourselves, Alexandra Stoddard gives us the following pointers she calls “Grace Notes”:

• Write from your heart.
• Express intimate, immediate impressions.
• Use a variety of different-colored inks and stationary.
• Buy a fountain pen and discover its magical powers.
• Read people’s published letters.  They’re more real than biography and even auto biography because they’re deeply specific.
• Just think of it:  Abraham Lincoln wrote a love letter to his future wife, Mary Todd, which was later auctioned at Sotheby’s by John Marion for $77,000.
• Encourage your children’s letter writing by never correcting their grammatical errors and style.  A letter written out of love, from the heart, should never be criticized.
• Express your understanding of what someone else is going through by sharing your thoughts.  Everyone is touched by positive reinforcement.
• When you write someone to report a simple truth—that you’re thinking of them—you always touch that person.
• Send your own thoughts in a blank card, rather than buying a printed card that tries to formalize your feelings.  Just say it in your own words.
• Write a note inside each book you give away as a present.
• Write an “ongoing letter”—one written in different snatches of time.  You can even use different-colored inks to reflect your moods.  This will give the recipient more reading pleasure.
• Write a loving letter out of the blue, to someone you haven’t seen in a while.
• Write a letter on the back of a pretty picture.
• Read letters of E.B White and be enchanted.
• The best way to improve your handwriting is to dot an “i” and cross a “t”.  Take time to enjoy the process.
• If you receive an enchanting thank-you letter, write back; begin a correspondence.
• Illustrate a letter when you are in a creative, playful mood.
• Letters are intimate.  Be intimate
• When you write a letter and tell a story, you are multiplying the event and allowing it to live on.

A few letters to read:

Collected Letters of C.S. Lewis, C.S. Lewis
The Letters of Lewis Carroll, Edited by Morton N. Cohen Carroll
Jane Austen – Selected Letters, 1796-1817, edited by R.W. Chapman
Love Letters of Great Men, by John C. Kirkland
The World’s Great Letters, by M. Lincoln Schuster
Letters of E. B. White, compiled by Dorothy Lobrano Guth

Posted by:
 Linda Hawkinson