"We boast that we belong to the nineteenth century, and are making the most rapid strides of any nation. But consider how little this village does for its own culture....It is time that villages were universities...."
— Thoreau, Walden (Everyman's Library version, p. 96-97)
Letter from grade school friend yesterday. She called me Pajamas, her old nickname for me. Her handwriting looks astonishingly similar to grades 6/7.
I wrote her back, pulling all the stops: fountain pen, Eaton paper, about 5 stamps of varying values on the envelope: pomegranate, silver coffeepot, teapot, Navajo necklace with turquoise. Feels more like art than using the computer does, for sure.
Back in the old days — which I'm desperately trying to revive in small ways here and there, like letters – this was the way distant friends & I kept touch. Back when I had time. I would put on some music, lay down on the floor or sit at the mechanical typewriter purchased for 3 bucks at a yard sale, and write. Go out to class, or work, or a meal, and come back and write some more. Excerpt a book I liked or was reading at the time. I haven't managed this kind of one-to-one mastery with email yet.
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There really is something to your slowing down and being more analog than digital. Everything happens so fast and its still now fast enough these days. I remember getting real letters from a friend many years ago. It was exciting to get something in the mail that wasn't a bill. these days I might get a little surge when I get an email but its not the same cause you can't see the handwriting and you can doodle and draw little things like you can on paper... This girl I knew would alwyas put little hearts over her name and the paper she wrote on always smelled like her perfume. Can't do that on an email.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Frank! And I need to write more letters. I keep looking for them in the mail box and then I remember I haven't written any lately....
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