Chain of letters

I did something today that I haven’t done in years. I wrote a letter. Not a card or a note, mind you. But a bonafide, handwritten, four-page letter that I intend to drop off in a mailbox tomorrow so that it can begin a snail mail journey to my aunt and uncle in northern California.

When I attended graduate school in Scotland about a decade ago, I used to write letters fairly often. It became a way for me to share my adventures with Sarah, particularly when I was traveling and my only other options were pricey phone cards or Internet cafes to stay in touch. I’d write in coffee shops, parks and while riding on planes or trains and then diligently track down the nearest post office. One time, I even mailed a letter from the Dubai airport while traveling with friends en route to Malaysia.

But once I returned to the U.S., my interest in letter writing waned. Now, in this age of instant communication, a traditional letter might seem like it borders on being an anachronism (even though the U.S. Postal Service apparently delivers as many as 150 billion letters a year). But late last year, I stumbled upon this article on Utne Reader, which piqued my interest in letter writing yet again.

After experiencing a year seemingly shaped by public outrage (and people often commenting off the cuff, sometimes to their own detriment), I started to wonder if devoting some time to “slow communication” would help me better compose my thoughts and keep me better grounded. As I thought about it more in the ensuing weeks, I became excited about the idea of making 2015 “My Year of Letter Writing.” I set a goal of drafting at least one handwritten letter a month to friends, family or whoever else I feel inspired to correspond with.

This isn’t a resolution so much as it an experiment, one that I hope will become a habit. I want to see if I’m capable of maintaining my commitment to slow communication even as I email, text and tweet away. I want to find out if it really does feel more rewarding to write directly to someone in longhand. I wonder if thoughts scrawled out on fountain pen paper in scraggly cursive or uneven print will hold meaning that their keyboard-typed, digitized cousins cannot. I’m curious whether the recipients will write me back. And I’m interested to see if I will become a better writer and learn something from the experience.

My aunt and uncle don’t have an email address or even an Internet connection, as far as I know. Writing them a letter is a way for me to bridge a communication divide. But I’m sure that I’ll write to others whom I could just as easily contact by phone, email or talk with face to face. What’s the value of sending a letter to them?

There’s a proud tradition of writers using letters to express and reveal themselves in new ways and leave behind a physical record of what and how they thought. It may be nostalgic, but to me there’s a beauty in that kind of correspondence that would be lost if they were emails instead.

We clearly live in a world where emails and social media messages will continue to proliferate and I’ll no doubt be adding my fair share to tally. But surely there must a time and place in our communication journeys for taking the scenic route. I know that I want to leave behind something more than a tweet or an email.