Gonna Sit Right Down and Write Myself a Letter...

Or maybe that's what blogs are anyway -- letters to ourselves and some small piece of the world.


But it's not the same. And e-mail doesn't do the trick either. Oh sure, there is something still pretty wonderful about sending an electronic note to anyone anywhere in the world and having it delivered, and even responded to, immediately. However, electronic shorthand is not the same as writing or receiving a good, old-fashioned letter delivered by hand or through the mail.

A real letter is written or typed on paper, sealed in an envelope, and sometimes wrapped around photographs or newspaper clippings or dried flower petals or locks of hair. And a truly creative letter even goes beyond convention and arrives scrawled across adding machine tape, down a roll of toilet paper, or cut into puzzle pieces with much assembly required -- a pleasure prolonging process not unlike literary foreplay.

I have, at various times in my life, been a prolific letter writer. And I have had the good fortune of being the recipient of letters from others who love written intercourse as much as I do. I wish I had kept every letter I ever received. If I had, I would be up tonight re-reading them all instead of sitting here in the darkness writing a blog about letters. But, somewhere along the road that is my lifetime, some of them were misplaced, carelessly forgotten, and (please forgive me, dear friends and family) several years ago, I actually intentionally dumpstered most of the letters received over my lifetime There were dozens, some dating back to my penpal days in elementary school. They filled a large box. Don't ask me why I did it. It seemed like the thing to do at the time.


And, narcissist that I am, I would also like to read all the letters I have sent to others: sneak back in time, see who I was at that moment, what so filled my heart that I was moved to commit it to paper for eternity. And the love letters... I think I may have written a few that would make me blush to even admit I ever laid ink across a page with such abandon. My old letters are still out there. I know because some of you have told me so over the years. One of you even keeps them locked in a safety deposit box at the bank. (Are you sure you want your family finding those when you're gone?)

Then there's the blatant voyeur in me that loves reading other people's letters. I am a sucker for published collections of letters -- individual ones like Flannery O'Connor, Georgia O'Keefe, the Bronte sisters, as well the complete correspondence of George Bernard Shaw and Mrs. Patrick Campbell, Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald, and Henry Miller and Anais Nin. Such a window on their lives, their times, their passions... One of my favorite things is finding old letters or postcards in antique shops or flea markets, reading them, filling in the vagaries of a stranger's life with my over-amped imagination.

The writer in me misses writing letters, misses the anticipation of receiving a letter in hand, misses the sentiment of re-reading a creased and faded memory. The romantic in me misses the unabashed intimacy that bravely committing thought and feeling to paper produces. I know I long for many things to be as they once were, sentimental old fool that I am, but none so much as this. I want to pick up my mail and find a letter that stirs my heart, makes me laugh out loud or cry into the night, dares me to think beyond my own dogma, reveals the soul of the writer. I want to again experience the passion and bravery of personal prose.

I recently asked an acquaintance to write me a letter, just write about anything at all that really mattered to her. In fact, I had the nerve to ask on two different occasions. You would have thought I had asked her to pose nude or reveal the skeletons in the family closet. And this person is a writer, someone whom I would assume would be most comfortable with such a request. Because that is what I miss the most, I think: corresponding with those who so freely share their experiences that every time I read their letters, the moments recorded become my own.

Write someone a letter. If you write me, I'll write you back. Some day when I am famous and need a dose of embarrassment to bring me back to earth, you can publish the letters and maybe make a little spending money. If not, you'll at least have kindling or something to read in the middle of sleepless nights when nostalgia hums you awake with a mosquito's persistence...