Day 693 of 1000
My Finnish grandmother used to write letters to all her grandkids. She wrote with a beautiful hand about the weather, her garden, who she had seen, and all kinds of other mundane things. It was fabulous to receive one. Whenever any of us felt bad, we would write her a letter because we knew we would get one back even though she just lived across town. I wrote letters to my family when I was in college, to Lorena, when we were courting, and to many, many friends and relatives over the years.
Part of the appeal was the days and weeks wait between letters. It made one work hard at getting it right because, if you blew it, it took a pretty long time to make it right. I think people can get pretty flip with Internet communications because responses are so immediate. If you say something wrong, you can correct it in less than a minute. I think it probably coarsens discourse.
It gave me great joy to see that Kelly made postcards for her friends to send via “snail mail.” There are some things that the internet will never replace. When someone does something like this for you, you know it took some effort. You know the person was doing it for you. Specifically. I miss it. I think I need to start writing snail mail letters again