Old Fashioned Letters

I received a letter in the mail a couple of weeks ago. Such a rare thing – an actual piece of paper that you can hold in your hands and fold and unfold. The really special thing about this particular letter is that I can count on it arriving twice a year, on every birthday and every wedding anniversary.

My faithful pen-pal, Lila, has been writing to me, and I to her, since I was just a kid. I think I was about five when she moved away. I was quite fond of her husband, the pastor of our church, and I’m sure I penned my first letters in their direction almost as soon as I had gained mastery enough of the pencil to get my thoughts across on paper.

I’ve had other pen-pals in my lifetime, but in this day of the electronic age, Lila is the only one I can count on for those delightful notes that I can fold and carry around in my back pocket and read again and again. Oh sure, you can print an email message, but it’s just not the same. There’s something about knowing that the paper in your hand was in their hand not so long ago. It comes complete with smells and tactile sensations; an old-fashioned letter is a sensual experience that just doesn’t transfer through the internet.

The lack of abundance in snail mail these days, however, is partly why I’ve grown so fond of blogs. Not only has blogging, for me, replaced the letters I once wrote to friends and family; but in blogs I have found the sentiment I loved in those old-fashioned letters. Though people aren’t blogging with me, specifically, in mind as an audience, they are sharing glimpses of their lives and giving me a chance to interact through comments. Sometimes those interactions lead to more personal email exchanges. It’s not writing letters, but it gives me a similar sense of connecting, of sharing what’s in your head or of making the world feel a little smaller, more intimate.

I continue to miss all the tactile sensations that accompanied an old fashioned letter and the specific curiosity of a person’s handwriting… but unlike the old-fashioned letter, at least I know that whenever I’m feeling a bit lonely and looking for a bit of news from an old friend, I’ll likely find one or more of them have updated a blog. It’s better than waiting for the mailman, only to find that the letter you’d hoped for didn’t arrive.