(Host) April is a busy month, from observing Earth Day to promoting the
preservation of hand-written cards and letters. Commentator Mary
McCallum is an educator, librarian and freelance writer whose recent
re-discovery of a long correspondence from the past has renewed her
appreciation of this fading practice.
(McCallum) Recently, I came across a folder of letters from an elderly
friend who died in the early nineties. As I sat on the floor and read, I
lost all sense of time. Each letter drew me on to the next. Allan had
lived two miles down the dirt road from me in an old Vermont farmhouse
that had changed little over the years. It had retained its spare,
practical New England homeyness – drippy faucets, chilly drafts, pull
string lights. And it was strewn with books.
Allan’s letters,
written on plain white paper in tiny chicken script, reminded me of the
friendship we had shared that was punctuated by walks in the garden, tea
and toast, and thick letters in my mailbox.
When I was forty
and dumped unceremoniously by my boyfriend, eighty year-old Allan sent a
letter of condolence with this advice: "Stick out your chest and look
down with scorn and contumely on dastardly rats." A few more lines
suggested courage and an invitation to tea, but it was that punchy first
phrase that strengthened my heart and taught me a new word for contempt
.
Well into our correspondence, I told Allan’s daughter that I
didn’t open his letters until I went to bed where, propped up on
pillows, I could take time to savor his words and decipher the crimpy
cursive. Weeks later I received a letter in which he told me he had it
"on good authority" that I read his letters in bed. He would henceforth
include in each dispatch a bedtime story about his youthful travels:
walks across the English countryside, archeological treks in Turkey in
the ‘30s, chance encounters with shepherds in ancient Greek olive
groves.
With the rise of digital communication and the techno
juice of email, instant messaging, Tweets and texting, letter writing is
becoming a lost art – except in the world of corrections, where it’s a
lifeline to the world beyond bars. The U.S. Postal Service is a
staggering dinosaur saddled with junk mail that nobody wants to open,
while social networking sites boil over with postings and short
messages, few of them reflective, crafted or memorable. Most are deleted
upon reading.
In Chicago, there’s a group called Letter Writers
Alliance. They have a website, yet their mission transcends the digital
– keeping the art of letter writing alive. They sell real stationary,
address books and even airmail stickers – vintage stuff. And it’s
heartening that a new Vermont business specializing in fine custom
stationary recently opened in Manchester. Its owner believes you just
can’t replace the feeling of holding a letter in your hand.
I’ll
keep my little pile of letters posted from a friend just down the road.
Artifacts of another time, they required time and attention of both
writer and reader. They fueled imagination and reflection. Back then,
there was no Send button to hit, to let fly in an instant and perhaps
regret later on.
But of course, that’s what white-out was for.