Ever think about how weird it is that we use the phrase “keep in touch” when “keeping in touch” never really means touching?
When I spent six months in England without Meg, we spent a lot of time “keeping in touch.” Lots of e-mail and instant messenger. But the best thing we did was write letters. Real letters, handwritten, with ink and fancy stationary. Envelopes and stamps and waiting. Waiting was what the whole period was about. Waiting.
Nobody waits anymore. It’s the electric age. It can be some comfort, I suppose, not having to wait for word from your loved one, but it takes a lot of the poetry out of it, for sure.
Those letters we wrote to each other would make you bawl. But think back: any letter written to you can make you bawl. Because every letter sent is a little organic piece of the person who wrote it. You can pick up the paper and smell the person. Maybe they smudged the ink and you can see a fingerprint.
And the greatest part is that you can keep them around. You can hang them on your wall, or put them under your pillow. You can hold them in your fingers. Touch them.
We have our old letters in a box in the closet. Many of them have little doodles of the parks in which we wrote them. Many of them became quite elaborate in design. With each one, we would try to trump the other, to see just how beautiful we could make them.
I have typed maybe one or two beautiful e-mails in my life. But every letter I took the time to write was beautiful.
So the other day I was playing with my watercolors and decided to write a letter in comics/watercolor. It was beautiful, spontaneous, and straightforward. I was so pleased with myself that I wanted to hang it on the wall.
But I didn’t. I scanned it in Photoshop (better than carbon copy paper), put it in an envelope, and sent it into the world.
grant says
When my brother first moved out to California I wrote him about every other week and tried to do it in collage-form. Eventually I was intimidated by it because I knew if I wrote him a straight up normal letter, it would some how not measure up to the collaged ones.
I’m sure he would have loved them either way.
Mark Larson says
Well said. Reminds me of a little essay I wrote a couple years ago. Aside from me, pretty much the only people who send personal letters in my family are my grandparents. I guess it’s just another manifestation of my interest in all things paper-, type-, design-, or book-related, but I love fiddling with the layout and collaging in cool items. I think part of it is a desire to “leave something behind.”
Which makes me think I should put the computer away for a while and write another one this weekend. Thanks, Austin.
austin says
Here’s a letter my great Uncle George sent me back in 1992. I was doing a genealogy project for 4-H.
I just love the simple poetry of it. I think this was written shortly before he died…
Grant, your collage letters sound great. My wife is really into collage, and I personally think comics ARE collage.
Mark, you should send me that essay.
Mark Larson says
You’ve got mail.
michael says
the curious moral of this entry seems to be: long live gutenberg?
austin says
no, i don’t think so…
connie says
This was a wonderful entry, Austin. Interestingly enough, this was a topic of discussion by a group of my fellow teachers recently. We had been teaching the children about writing friendly letters and said that internet communication just “isn’t that friendly”. Mr. Schoch, the editor, says well done. Thanks for sharing Uncle George’s letter.
Austin says
Thanks, Connie! There is an intimacy to paper that i’m afraid the newer generation might just miss out on…