Start Writing Letters

Photo Credit Tammy Strobel

There’s something deeply ritualistic and at the same time comforting about writing a letter. Over christmas despite the ridiculous price of first class postage stamps I sat down one morning and hand wrote personalised messages in over sixty christmas cards.

Very quickly I found myself transported through time as memories of each person flickered across my mind during the minutes spent writing their names and a short message. The feelings and emotions that engulfed me felt warm, cozy and comforting. Suddenly I felt connected to each person. A permanent smile set up home on my face during the full duration for the time that I sat writing.

Perhaps I’d experienced a rise in endorphins the feel good emotions stimulated by the very act of sealing each envelope as if a part of me was being preciously wrapped inside, waiting to pop out once the envelope was opened. I experienced another surge of energy accompanied by a huge sense of accomplishment when I posted my wad of letters in the red pillar-box outside the local post office. Even planting the stamp ritualistically on the right hand corner of each envelope felt grounding, affirming and a sense of completion.

Somehow no matter how personal the contents of an email writing it and sending it virally personally doesn’t stimulate the same kinesesthic and visceral feelings generated from the act of sitting down and writing a letter or card by hand. This year I’m on a campaign to reinvigorate the art of letter writing.

Shortly after that experience of my Christmas card writing expedition I attended a Christmas artist market close by to where I lived. It was housed over three floors of a pub and was full of independent artists and crafts people selling their Christmas wares.

Arriving on the top floor my eyes were immediately drawn over to a group of people who appeared to be writing. Always inquisitive and just that little bit nosey I moved in closer to inspect what was going on. Much to my delight I discovered Claire the founder of this writing café Letter Lounge sitting at a table fully stocked with writing paper, pen, envelope and most important stamps. All I had to do was sit down at the table and write someone a letter.

I didn’t need any persuasion. I‘d already pulled up a chair unlike my sister who touched the paper and pens quizzically whilst saying out loud, “I don’t get this.” I could see how logic was not giving her a quick hit on what she would get from engaging in a letter writing experience.

Letter writing is a slow fix that crawls through the body as the letter unfolds. She would only discover the joys of letter writing from the act of writing the letter itself. So many of our activities in these modern times are dependent on us being externally gratified even though short lived without having to personally expend much energy.

It’s the engagement of the body that I find fascinating in the process of letter writing. The heart connected to the arm, connected to the pen, connected to the nib, which connects to the pen that channels all of this into the words and sentences on the surface of the page intrigues me in a way that writing on a keyboard doesn’t. Letter writing involves a suspension of time and space and time travelling and an emergence into Freud’s the psychoanalyst’s concept of Free Association.

My sister soon settled down and for the next twenty minutes we were both immersed on the blank page as we wrote letters to my daughter who had recently moved to live in Dubai.

As I wrote I found myself starring off into space and then coming back to the page. Each line I wrote felt deliberate and handpicked.  It was slow which felt good and time somehow stretched supporting my time travel between the past and the present as I retrieved memories that I wanted to capture on the page.

“ Such a sweet gift – a piece of handmade writing in an envelope that is not a bill, sitting in our friends path when she trudges home from a long day spent among wahoos and savages, a day our words will help repair.’ writes Garrison Kellor in her chapter for the book, We Are Still Married  – How To Write A Letter (Keillor, 1989)

By the time my sister had finished writing her letter she too had a huge smile on her face. “I really enjoyed that, it made me think in a way I am not accustomed to. I’m going to get the children at school to write letters. I think they will end up feeling as good as I did.” She had caught the fever, the deep satisfaction had swept over her whole body and her face was awash with emotions.

My daughter was delighted when she received the letters out of the blue some weeks later.  Claire had provided us with stamps on the spot so both letters could be on their way to Dubai where my daughter is temporarily living.

The letters were not only a big surprise but they brought a new type of conversation into her space. We had not seen her for three months but now with our letters in her possession the lack of our physical presence was replaced by the fact the she could now touch, hold and sense our words. Our letters made us feel that much closer to her and every time she thinks of them it brings a huge smile to her face.

• When was the last time you wrote someone a personal letter?
• When was the last time you received a personalized, hand written letter or card through the post?

Is the handwritten letter is in danger of becoming extinct? You could change that this weekend by finding yourself some paper or a card, a pen, envelope and stamps. Give yourself 30 minutes and sit and write anything that comes to mind to your chosen person to write to. If you make a mistake simply put a straight line through it and continue.

So who will you write your first letter to and post in a letterbox?

Check out Claire’s website www.letterlounge.co.uk and the www.thejoyofslowcommunication.com

Read part two of this blog next week for tips from a great article by Garrison Keillor on How To Write A Letter.