the quest for the quill

Dear Reader,

I remember it like it was yesterday, though it was more than half a century ago. My sister had been off at school while I'd remained home with Mom, still too young for this new adventure called kindergarten. My mother had flurried about doing this and that, tending the house--as Mom had been prone to do--stopping periodically to draw pictures with me or read another story. Simultaneously, our eyes had lifted to the door, to the source of a startling knock. When my mother returned, she'd held in her hands a box maybe ten inches high and ten inches wide, wrapped in plain brown paper tied off with twine. After a quick snip, she'd handed it to me. Sure enough, across the top of the sturdy, crinkling paper, I'd spied my own name scrawled in black ink in a handwritten cursive. The smile had stubbornly refused to leave my face as I plopped down on the dining room rug to inspect this curiosity further. Inside the box, I'd discovered a doll and an unsealed envelope. At once, I'd retrieved its contents and read:

For my darling Little One. Happy Birthday, with all my love. -Grandma

In every special moment we'd shared, just the two of us, my maternal grandmother had always called me her Little One. And, as I'd read those words in her own familiar script, my heart filled with a comforting warmth, and it seemed as if, for a short while, she'd been right there at my side, not hours away in the lakeside home she and my grandfather had built. It had been the first piece of mail, the first letter--brief as it was--sent directly to me, and that's the day I'd learned that with every postal delivery, there was the possibility of magic.

Ten years later, when my family had traded our small-town Midwest home for a drier climate--leaving my three best friends behind--it had been the magic of their letters that alleviated the loneliness of a big, frightening city and gave me the courage to forge ahead on my own.

By the time I'd reached my mid-twenties, I'd already observed signs that the age-old custom of letter writing had begun its wayward journey into obsolescence.

So much has been lost or diminished in the digital age—cursive penmanship, the proper use of punctuation, mailing printed birthday, holiday, and thank-you cards to loved ones, and, of course, letter writing.  Not texting.  Not photographing the morning meal or tweeting about how the eggs had gone off.  I’m talking about actual letters about actual thoughts, feelings, and happenings, a written dialogue between two human beings, carried on privately, without the expectation of immediacy but the patience and anticipation such an intimate act of communication is due.  It—like cards and cursive and basic language skills—has lamentably become a dying art form.

With nothing but affection, Dennie says I’m an “old soul,” because I still cherish these things; I still become giddy at the sight of tangible mail from a real-life friend.  (I get pretty darn excited about the correct use of a semicolon too.)  There’s something extraordinary about a real letter, a sense of serenity and belonging that I fear entire generations have never experienced.  Maybe they never will.  But I hope I’m wrong.  I hope this World Letter Writing Day will either inform or remind people what it was like to discover companionable correspondence in the mailbox, to sneak off to some quiet spot and lose themselves in words composed only for them, to savor each line down to the signature and inevitable postscript.  And I hope that reminder will inspire an extraordinary chain reaction—an exchange of hand-written or hand-typed letters that will strengthen the bonds of friendship.  With the time and attention required, the very act of writing a letter, after all, says, “I care about you; I’m thinking about you” to a degree that no text or tweet or Facebook post ever possibly could.

So now I present you with this epistolary challenge.  There is a specific person out there who flits into your mind regularly. A dear friend from way back, perhaps. A family member you haven't spoken to in ages. An old flame who is also, coincidentally, single now too. Or maybe it's someone who guided, mentored you at a critical point in your history, and you always wished you'd had a chance to say thank you for the positive ways you influenced my life. Life gets busy for all of us, but the time you make for this simple--practically archaic--tradition is so worth the rewards it will reap. Send a little magic, a smile, a reminder of another human being's importance to you. Go share your thoughts, your feelings, your latest happenings with someone who matters; go show a genuine interest in their lives too. Write a letter today, but should you insist on going really old school and setting a bona fide quill and inkwell to the task, might I suggest procuring a few extra hours of solitude, far more parchment or paper than you realistically require, a handful of healthy snacks, and a brand new packet of wet wipes?

Faithfully yours,

J.B.

P.S. I don't really have anything extra to add, but who doesn't love a postscript? It is the last act after the last act, the crowd-cheering, chandelier-rattling encore of every good letter. Goodnight, Dear Reader. May your mailbox again become a receptacle of joy...and not merely a dragnet full of dreaded advertisements and bills.