As You Like It: Lost Art of Letter Writing

It’s summer so I have more time to do things that I neglect during the school year. Like dusting. I hate dusting. I would rather get my teeth cleaned. At least there you know it will last six months. But dusting is something that only Sisyphus could have invented. But after reaching for a book from the shelf next to my bed and coming away with a city of cobwebs and some leftover Snoopy fur, I dusted.

As I took the books off the shelf I began rifling through the journals that I had collected. Some of them had only a few pages written in them, some were brand new. All were lovely with dense, creamy paper waiting for a thick ballpoint or fountain pen. They reminded me of how I used to love buying new journals. Before each trip I took I would head for the bookstore to acquire a new diary. It was as if each trip demanded its own book.

One journal was filled with writing from a trip that Lisa and I had taken to Montreal during the summer of 2003. I noticed that she and I had taken turns writing in it and that I had pasted in pictures as well. I had created the perfect time capsule. The combination of our writing styles and the pictures brought back those days more effectively than any movie could have.

As I turned the pages, two long letters dropped out. They were written by Steve that same year. He had gone on a business trip to Las Vegas and I was pouting about being left behind. As I began reading I remembered what a wonderful writer Steve was. Surprising for a computer engineer!

The only thing that was missing from these particular letters was Shatz’s neat handwriting. He sent these to me as an email and I printed them out. I needed to keep his words on paper where I felt they belonged and not on some plastic disc. If I hadn’t done that, they would have been lost forever.

That’s the way we do things now in this brave new world that I am increasingly uncomfortable living in. We type, we email, we text. We are afraid to use the phone to talk lest we take up too much of someone’s time. I always hear people complaining, “Why couldn’t they just have texted me?”

So the idea that someone might actually put pen to paper is a completely outdated one. According to Jaci Conroy, who wrote a column in the Boston Globe about the written word, “The average home receives just one personal letter every 10 weeks according to the 2015 Household Diary Study by the U.S. Postal Service.”

I’m trying my best to remember the last personal letter that I found in my mailbox. I think it might have been an invitation, and the only thing that was handwritten on that was the address on the envelope. Every now and then I see something that looks like a personal letter and my heart does a little pitter-pattery thing, only to discover that it’s a cleverly disguised sales pitch. Interesting that they would use a personal letter format. That must mean that we still value the silly things.

I am as guilty as everyone else. I email and text, though I am one of those idiots who texts in full sentences, but then I’m old. I can’t remember the last time I wrote an actual letter to someone. If I send cards, all I do is scribble a few words.

It surprises me how much I miss letters. I miss the waiting, the incredibly exciting moment when you opened the mailbox door and saw the reply that you’d been waiting for; the first reading at the mailbox and then the many re-readings over the next few days. The cherishing of the rustling paper, and the color of the ink, the crafted sentences — the words and doodles and the final savoring of storing it with other letters tied in a pink ribbon and placed in a special box. All gone.

Shatz and I began writing to each other in college. Phone calls were expensive and we always had so much to say to one another. I spent hours choosing stationary, colored pens, and even had sealing wax to carefully melt on the envelope. If the post office people saw sealing wax today they’d think it was an explosive. I would wait until late night then sit in my window looking at the empty streets while scratching words. I wrote pages and pages — it never seemed to be enough.

And in return I received pages and pages of words that my love had written — a seemingly inexhaustible supply. It reminded me of the lines in Romeo and Juliet when she speaks of her love for Romeo: “My bounty is as boundless as the sea, my love as deep; the more I give to thee the more I have for both are infinite.”

I miss those letters so very much. We wrote again for years when I left for Israel. I have filled boxes in the attic that attest to our amazing persistence. One day Lisa and Mariel will find them and read them and marvel at the abundance. But what will they leave? You cannot tie texts with a ribbon. They’re too slippery for memory.

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Posted by Joan Florek Schottenfeld on Jul 8 2017. Filed under As You Like It, Featured Content, Opinion. Both comments and pings are currently closed.