The art of letters

I write a lot of letters. Perhaps 10 or twelve a month. Most of them are social, a few are business letters or letters to politicians.

I receive far fewer, of course. Only two or three of my recipients are regular corespondents.

Every so often, one of my kids will point out to me that letters are "out of style" as a means of communication, and they will point out that they hang out on messenger looking for me and in a pinch, they drop me an e-mail.

And it is true. I do get a chance to chat with them on messenger reasonably frequently and I do get the occasional e-mail from them.

So, why do I persist in writing letters and sending them off into a vacuum?

I guess a large part of it is that I understand letters to be important. A lot of what we know about history, we have gathered from people's letters. Some of my favorite historical novels are written in the form of correspondence.

Phone calls are good in their place. They're immediate and can be intimate. Certainly the sound of the voice of a loved one is not something I would want to forfeit. But a phone call is ephemeral -- you can't pull a phone call out and read it over and over again. A phone call won't be there for your heirs to read and come to an understanding of who you were 100 years after you're gone. And a phone call may not come at the right time, and so it can be hurried, interrupted, or cut off abruptly.

Messenger, the same. I enjoy the immediacy of it and it certainly makes it easier to communicate regularly. I don't know how I could have survived Jack's first year without messaging. I was at work from the time Jack was six weeks old, and I would have missed his most of his firsts, except that Rod kept me posted all day with quick messages. It wasn't as good as being there, but i didn't feel cut off from what was happening and, ironically perhaps, I was better able to focus on my work because i felt "in touch". But I couldn't pull those messages out today and read them over and over again and they certainly aren't there for posterity. And messenger means you have to be at the computer, something I find I don't have much time for these days.

E-mail is a little more immediate than a paper letter, and certainly quicker to write and send. It's also easier to save to reread. But it can't put you in touch with everyone. At least not yet. Letters can reach anyone who has an address - - not everyone is online and people who don't receive much e-mail don't check their mail often, so it's not a reliable way to keep in touch.

Letters do take a few more moments, a little more trouble, than a quick e-mail. Nothing says "I was thinking about you" like a letter in the mailbox, precisely because it takes a moment to pull out pen and paper - - maybe a few minutes more to handcraft a greeting card -- it takes a few minutes to write legibly whatever is on your mind. It takes a slight effort to get a stamp. All of those moments add up to an unspoke message that the person receiving the letter matters to you. Matters enough to think about them and take a bit of trouble for them when you don't have to.

You can tuck in a tea bag or a photo into a letter and make it "a moment together" when you can't actually be together. You can take the time to say what might not seem important in casual conversation. You can record the days of your life, to be read and reread by someone who cares about you and if you're lucky you can read the 'record of days' and the important thoughts of someone you care about. You can even forge a deeper relationship, even with someone with whom you share four walls.

Everyone still checks the mail box, so your letter will arrive and be found. The letter may not arrive at the right time, but the envelope can sit in a pocket, a sweet promise of a moment together when the time is right.

You can share a letter around the family or amongst friends. That has been the case with letters that my grandfather wrote to his cousin when he was "away at the war". Those letters aren't earth shattering, but their homeliness has spoken volumes across the years to all of his descendants who have read them. One comes away with a sense of the young man who wrote them - -his vocal rhythms, what was important to him, the way he expressed himself. I cherish those letters.

And so, I write letters. Maybe 10 or 12 a month. I don't know whether anyone reads them a second time or saves them. I don't know whether my letters have the same impact on anyone as other peoples letters have had on me. It doesn't matter, really. I write letters and I participate in the written conversation of the ages. I record my dailiness, I ponder things that are important to me, and I take a moment to focus on loved ones and try to forge a slightly closer relationship with people who matter a great deal to me.

In the end, to me, that is the art of letters.