Illustration by Catherine Chan
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When I collected my mail last month, I was thinking same old, same old, but there amidst the bills and ads, was a hand-addressed letter in ink. I was more than surprised to see that it was from my son. I thought something momentous must have happened and rushed to open it.
He had written about the snowfall in Toronto, his new neighbours, his walks with his children, and his favourite meal.
I learned this letter was inspired by his latest hobby - letter writing. He had just finished reading a book about Abraham Lincoln in the 1800s, before radio, television and phones, when the only way to communicate was through letters. These were full of personal thoughts and observations, which my son enjoyed reading. He decided to write his own. He has since written to everyone in the family and to some friends. Many are starting to write back to him.
I take walks in my local cemetery because it exudes life
One time, my daughter found a letter in an old book that was written by my grandmother in Toronto to my mother in Ottawa after she had heard the happy news that I was soon to be born. My grandfather shared the same thoughts. How wonderful for me to see I was welcomed into a family with love.
I travelled through Europe before I was married and I still have the 66 letters from my future husband. I hurried to the Canadian consulates to receive them, capturing the feelings and hopes of young love. Yes, they are tied together with a ribbon. I still open them and reread them time after time.
Emily Dickinson has written, “A letter always feels to me like immortality because it is the mind alone without corporeal friend.”
Over the years, people have treasured the letters received after the death of a writer. I am thinking of those from lost soldiers and recently from a teenager who died in the floods at her camp, to her mother in mourning.
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I remember as a kid, being sent to camp and hating it. I sent homesick letters to my Mom begging her to come and rescue me from the biting bugs and terrible food.
When Princess Elizabeth was married and receiving lots of gifts, I felt badly for Princess Margaret and sent her a tin of honey. (I don’t know why my parents did not stop me. It weighed a ton and members of the Royal Family never eat unknown food.) I received a lovely letter from a lady-in-waiting from Buckingham Palace. Also when U.S. president John F. Kennedy died, I received a thank-you note from Jackie Kennedy, for my condolences.
For Christmas this year, my son gave us each a beautiful fountain pen in a black velvet sleeve. As Keats wrote, “a thing of beauty is a joy forever.” I am just beginning to use my new pen and I keep making blotches. You can’t readily write quickly as we do with ballpoints. This forces you almost to meditate as you write. Also, it inspires you to choose lovely paper as you put your thoughts down. (I remember when ballpoints first became popular. I was a young teenager in the early 1950s. I put my new ballpoint pen in the breast pocket of my white shirt and I had a navy blue tattoo for weeks.)
Only a few of us are still sending Christmas cards. I remember many years ago, I would receive dozens of holiday cards, many with personal messages. This year I received exactly two and sent none.
When my four children were all away at university, I would send a family letter every Sunday. I would make three photocopies and send the original to one of them. All these years later, I still write the family letter, but on the computer; tap, tap, tap, and in moments, it arrives.
Some schools are no longer teaching cursive writing, and natural skills and habits are changing.
I have a hobby of handwriting analysis and we are told that the best writing to analyze is in a letter when the writer is usually in his relaxed true self. (Anyone who doesn’t believe in handwriting analysis has only to look at Donald Trump’s signature.)
Letters are tactile - they are not accidentally erased. In ancient times, women would dab perfume on the envelope. The first recorded letter is attributed to the Persian Queen Atossa around 500 B.C., and over the years letter-writing developed with the availability of paper and stamps.
There is a growing popularity of keeping a journal where often we write letters to ourselves, focusing on our troubles or joys and counselling ourselves.
A recent article in The Globe and Mail told of the growing popularity of fountain pens. Does this suggest letter writing might be returning? I, for one, hope so. I miss receiving letters in the mail and I imagine others do, too.
I have just finished penning a letter to my son, my first letter in a very long time. I sealed it and applied a stamp, and now I need to find a red mailbox.
Rosemary Leckie lives in Ottawa