When I was a child, my parents would send me off to camp for a week every summer. Before I would leave, my mother would give me five pre-addressed, stamped envelopes with stationary so that I could write her letters while I was gone. Seriously, most of the time I was home before those letters arrived, but that did not matter. My mother probably did not know it, but she was teaching me a valuable lesson: to write.
My mother saved some of those letters and it is quite hilarious to look back on my 9 year old self. I guess I have always loved the concept of mail. Who didn’t enjoy opening their locker in junior high and finding a note? And if you tell me you never got in trouble for passing notes in class, I KNOW you are not telling the truth, lol. And, yes, I still have some “love” notes from high school boyfriends tucked away, somewhere.
Although my mail box today is full of bills, catalogs and junk flyers, I still get a small rush of excitement whenever I pick up the mail. Sometimes, there is a treat for me in the form of a handwritten letter or card! In today’s world of text messaging, online everything and social media, where you are lucky to get a couple of sentences out of someone, a letter or card can be compared to Christmas! Oh, and while I am on the subject, it saddens me that people don’t send Christmas cards anymore.
In the tradition of all good Southern women, I have personalized notecards that I keep with me, as one never knows when the need to dole out a handwritten note will arise. Letter writing is one of the most beautiful ways to tell a story and can almost be considered a lost art. Do you know how much of our world’s history can be attributed to letters and personal journals?
This summer, why not try writing a few letters to loved ones in your life? You may not think you have much to write, but if you focus on descriptions, emotions or storytelling, you might find that you have more words than you first thought.
Here’s to resurrecting lost arts!
~Michele
chele0001@yahoo.com
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