Some friends and I bat out four or five volleys of updates during a day, which I sort into personal folders holding hundreds of messages. In my rogue unattached days on JDate after divorce, I sent and received over 1,000 emails – 99 percent of them saved and a special few printed out. My Yahoo “sent” file holds another 5,000 messages. Hey, I type fast.
Yet, I miss the days of snail mail. Traditional fuddy-duddy daddy that I am, I still drill into my son the absolute social necessity of sending hand-written thank-you notes when he gets a gift. Not a phone call, not an email, but an old-fashioned letter. If I didn’t pass on the tradition, I’m sure Mom and Aunt Charlotte would haunt my dreams, chanting, “Vaaaa-yun, didn’t we teach you better manners than that?”
For me, handwritten communications express a personality. My mother and Aunt Charlotte had instantly recognizable scripts; how many of us today know and savor the handwriting of a relative or friend, or lover? Very few, I wager. Letters mark a moment of joint time, of just me sharing with just you. Stamped envelopes don't come with "bcc" or "reply to all" options.
I still send real letters, typically birthday cards and thank-you notes, or letters in “care packages” of photographs and magazine articles. And when a surprise letter brightens my mail box, the impact is electrifying. However well I know somebody, to hold that person’s handwritten thoughts touches me deeply – that person shared something special and secret. As the song goes, just you, just me.
For that moment, grace returns to the world.
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