Down to the letter.

To send a letter is a good way to go somewhere without moving anything but your heart.  ~Phyllis Theroux

I stumbled across a letter my mother wrote me last year, it fell out of one of my books, and I took it to bed with me, so that for the moment that I was reading it, it felt like she was there with me again, and the words she had thought so carefully to write were just as meaningful as they were the first time I read them. 

I also printed some of my digital photographs into actual ones, and relived memories flicking through them in my hands rather than on a screen.

In our times where a lot of us communicate quickly with picture messages, emails and just general "updates" to your "followers" or even just emoji, the ability to craft a letter and articulate how we feel is diminishing.

It's like because they put "selfie" and "twerk" in the dictionary, they had to take out "charm" and "dignity" to make room. And don't even get me started on grammar.

When I was at primary school in ye olde 90's we used to have to write letters for all sorts of things, most of them were to the Headmaster if you got in trouble or to a classmate if you sprayed fly-spray in their desk.* Whether we were apologising for bunking P.E, or accepting birthday parties; care was taken in the whole process, everything was thought out and formulaic.

*may or may not have been something I did when  I was nine.

The romance of being able to cherish how we share our lives with people in them is not the same. Photographs used to be something people dressed up for, had a good background, went to the chemist to get developed once they finished the film, and kept in special albums and showed to their guests when they invited them over.
Like this one:

And let's just compare this to what you see today....

Right......
See we lost a lot when we stopped writing letters or having to pay for each picture we took, because you can't reread a phone call.

For the first time, I received a genuine love letter, in proper handwriting on proper writing paper (that may or may not have been scented but I didn't want to stand outside my letterbox sniffing the mail for too long because my street has enough crazies on it as it is.) 

*cue soppy music*
With shaking hands I lifted the seal of emotion, and the words floated off the page and into my heart.
*cue swoon*
Yes, actions can speak louder than words. But beautiful words, ones that took time to compose especially for you in a letter, can speak to you as many times as you wish.


Good old Lord Byron said 

Letter writing is the only device for combining solitude with good company.  

So maybe you are alone whilst reading this, and maybe there is a pen nearby. If 10% of you who are reading this pick up the pen and write and send a letter to someone (even yourself in 6months time)

Then you will make 100% of someone's day.

Signed, sealed, delivered.

Jj