I fly out at 6:55 tomorrow morning and am wondering how I will get everything done--including packing--before then. But before I hit total whirlwind mode, I wanted to jot something down about the old-fashioned letter.
I don't have a vivid memory of many things from my childhood, but one thing I do remember is my mother teaching me how to write a letter. She drilled me on the importance of good penmanship, grammar and spelling, as well as paragraph structure. As a child, however, most of my correspondence was limited to short and simple thank you notes. Then I moved to Texas for college and found (after my long distance phone card privileges were sharply reduced due to my abuse of such privileges) the best way to keep in touch with my friends who chose Midwestern schools was by writing letters. So we wrote lengthy tomes about everything under the sun, mailing them off at least once, but often two or three, times per week. I wish I still had those letters!
My friends and I don't write those kind of letters anymore. I suspect this is because we think we are too busy to write and now have cell phones that don't charge extra for long distance calls. But I realized this week, on reading a lengthy and satisfying birthday letter from my aunt, that I miss both writing and reading letters. For me, the pleasure of writing a letter lies in the choice of a solid and comfortable pen, beautiful writing paper and, most of all, thinking about what will make the reader laugh or otherwise read with interest.
My aunt lives in the town where she and my mother were born, a tiny village of 400 found about 80 miles southwest of Chicago. Reading her letter reminded me of the pleasure of a detailed glimpse into the life of someone you care about, presented in their "voice," which you can almost hear as you read their words on the page. Here is a little example of this:
I got me a new phone with call ID. I got so mad at [J and B (her teenage grandchildren)] calling & hanging up. J says it's B and B says it's J. A few days after I got it I had a hang up. I looked & it was a Colorado no. If I didn't have caller ID, I would have blamed them.
She wrote of a summer of corn and beans and fresh tomatoes. She talked about how she misses my uncle, who died almost two years ago, and how he used to be the one to take care of the yard. She asked when I will come home at Christmas time again. These latter items are things my aunt and I would never discuss quite like that in person, but somehow they fit just fine into a letter. I think I'll write her back from Vermont.
