As I pulled out the usual assortment of bills and coupon books and flyers from my mailbox last week, something vaguely familiar caught my eye.
No, I thought. It can’t be.
But there it was, like some kind of paper unicorn, a hand-addressed and stamped envelope — an honest to goodness letter.
This near-mythical beast turned out to be from one of my brothers — the one who, granted, is probably the least tech-savvy of all my relatives (and that includes some aunties in their 80s who are whizzes at Facebook). It contained only a short note and his share of payment for a family project (bless him, his version of a money transfer is still to send a $100 bill through the mail). But it got me thinking about the last time I opened my mailbox to find an envelope with my name and address written on it in ink — when it wasn’t my birthday, at least.
It’s been long enough that getting one sent a small wave of nostalgia over me.
I suppose I belong to one of the last generations that sent and received actual letters on actual paper as a matter of routine.
Thirty years ago, when we graduated from high school and went away to different universities — and then, when we returned home for the summer with a fresh new batch of friends — we kept up with the daily minutia of each other’s lives by picking up a pen and writing to one another.
So many letters were sent and received that it got so I often didn’t even need to see the return address — the choice of stationary was enough to tell me who had returned my last missive, or started a new string of correspondence.
If that wasn’t a tipoff, the handwriting would be. Were the letters large and loopy? Tight and precise? Practically illegible?
I have no idea how many letters I wrote or received over the years, but to this day, I still have dozens of them. High on a shelf in my spare bedroom are two big shoe boxes full of letters received in the ’80s, before email (and long before texting) became the go-to format for finding out what was what with your friends.
I still pull them down and sort through them occasionally, and I can still pick out the authors of most without looking at the return address.
The odd one features an entertaining doodle, some are only a few lines long, others go on for pages.
I’ve actually given some thought, from time to time, of turning them into some kind of art project. But I’m still waiting for inspiration to strike in a way that would make me willing to start carving them up or pasting them to bristol board.
I’m not there just yet; they’re still too precious.
Letter writing really is a lost art form — for my generation and the ones that came before, at least. But I suppose you can’t lose what you’ve never had.
Anyone who became literate after the advent of email may get birthday and Christmas cards in the mail from grandparents, but probably has little idea what it’s like to fill a page with the local gossip and the requisite “So, what’s new with you?” questions, drop it into a mail slot, and then have to wait patiently for days or even weeks for a response.
Or what it’s like to feel that small zing of excitement run up your spine at the mere sight of a letter from a distant friend.
Wouldn’t it be great to give them that — to bring back the practice of letter writing, even if it’s just temporary?
I’m going to try.
Obviously, it’s not something one person can do but, luckily, there are still enough piles of writing paper and envelopes, bins of pens and books of stamps to go around.
So here is my challenge to you: Sit down with pen and paper and take a few minutes to reconnect with someone who lives in a different postal code.
Then wait a week or so and check your mailbox. You just might find something there, among all the coupon books and flyers, to give you a little bit of a zing.