TripLit with D. Major

TripLit with D. Major

The Lost Art of Letter Writing - Literary and “Letterly” Destinations of the Mind

When was the last time you wrote a letter, and I don’t mean an anniversary, birthday, or sympathy card with “hope it’s the best” or “sorry for your loss” or even just “xoxo” and your name scribbled at the bottom of the card? I’m talking about an honest to God handwritten (or typed—I’ll give you that) letter that you wrote for no other reason than you want to share your comings and goings with a friend or a family member who will, hopefully, in turn share their comings and goings. Still pondering my question? I won’t hold my breath.

Is letter writing a thing of the past? We call this the communication era, but is it? Sure, you can call, text, or message someone in less than thirty seconds. You can hit “like” one hundred times per day on your friend’s FB posts or “heart” their Instagram posts but is that really communicating? We live with our faces in our screens in what appears to be a state of constant communication, apparently communicating, but it’s the exact opposite. Start calling it for what it is: Anti-social media. How many times have you’ve seen a couple on a date scrolling through their phones in silence? I think Banksy’s graffiti art, Mobile Phone Lovers, says it better than I can here. You know it’s true.

Go ahead and break up over text,you scoundrel.

But try writing a love letter.

Mike Coleman, a fellow author and friend in my artist salon, M’ville, shared his love letters between him and his lifelong partner when writing his memoir, The Way From Me To Us.

Truthfully, the entire book is a love letter, but the point is, those letters encapsulated their love in a manner that would have been impossible to capture with digitized communication.

And further, on the subject of authors and letter writing, I went to listen to Joyce Carol Oates speak at the Decatur Book Festival in Georgia earlier this month. One of the books discussed was Joyce Carol Oates: Letters to a Biographer. Her biographer, Greg Johnson, was in the audience. He started writing to Oates in 1975 and their epistolary relationship continued for years although sometimes it took on different forms including faxes and emails. It’s fascinating what a collection of letters can capture—a whole lifetime as it turns out.

Back in the day—wow, that’s a phrase that has become an all too common expression in my everyday vernacular—I remember the Sunday out-of-state phone calls (when the rates were cheaper, because yes, my younger readers, phone calls were charged by the minute). Sundays were our designated day to speak with Nana and Papa and Dad, who was usually working out-of-state. Those calls never lasted more than ten minutes with Mom given seven of those precious minutes and the remaining three divided between me and my two older sisters, Aleea and Julia.

If you are old enough to remember that scenario, you may also recall receiving a recording of unscripted dialogue on a cassette tape from a friend or family member. After listening, you would tape it over with your dialogue about life and mail it back to the sender. I wish I had all those tapes. I do have one from when I spent Easter with Nana and Papa in Sacramento. But overall, letter writing was the least expensive method of keeping up with your relatives. And what a joy to get a letter from Nana! I was envious of her stationary. I still have her letters tucked away; I still have every letter anyone has sent me. And I am not sentimental even though this admission suggests otherwise. Words mean something to me. Someone taking the time to put pen to paper deserves a space in my memory box.

Nowadays, I send friends postcards with some literary quote or an artsy card where I share something about my life and also express curiosity about theirs. But I am a rare species. I can easily imagine my letters displayed in a museum behind glass one day. Okay, that might be taking it a bit far. I am no Hemingway, a voracious and ferocious letter writer. Oftentimes, his letters were rants about other authors he didn’t like. Writers must have tough skin. More than likely my letters will not wind up in a museum. If they did a placard deciphering my horrible cursive—that looks more like ancient hieroglyphics—would be necessary.

I envision a teacher leading a school group while elucidating: “Prior to emails, cellphones, text messages, messaging, prior to Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Twitter, Zoom, X, and Tik-Tok people communicated with each other via paper and pens.” That one curious kid will politely raise a hand and ask, “What’s paper? What’s a pen?” Maybe there won’t even be a human teacher. There could be a robotic instructor that spits out information: “A pen is an instrument for writing or drawing with ink typically consisting of a metal nib or ball, or a nylon tip, fitted into a metal or plastic holder and used to write. Writing is the activity or skill of marking coherent words or symbols on paper and composing text. Letters are a written, typed, or printed communications, typically sent in an envelope by mail. The mail is a system that delivers letters and packages conveyed by the postal system. The United States Postal Service is an independent agency of the executive branch of the United States federal government that is responsible for providing postal service in the United States. The robotic teacher will likely not mention my somewhat affectionate (or not, depending on the day) nickname for the USPS – the “blackhole.”

But who knows? Cellphones and social media could go the way of letters. Emails have become largely obsolete. Plus, people don’t even write. AI can do all the work. Don’t get me started.

Shame, shame.

Let me back up a bit. When my stepson, Harry, was in middle school he picked out his Mother’s Day card for his mom and I thought it might be a nice surprise if he mailed the card. I assumed he knew how to fill out the address. This is what the envelope looked like:

He wrote “MOMMA” in great big letters across the front, her address in the top left-hand corner in a straight line going from one edge of the envelope to the other where the stamp belonged. I took over. I wrote her address under “MOMMA” with a C/O and her name under it. Yes, we could have put the card in the new envelope, but he made the effort and it was pretty adorable.

Please don’t think I’m making fun of him. He was never taught how to address envelopes. This was a revelation for me. Perhaps, it was a failure on my part for assuming he knew how. It was something I practiced when I was in elementary school. This is also not an attack on schools, teachers, or curriculums, because letter writing is a lost art. And you know what else is archaic?

Cursive. It’s no longer taught, or at least in the schools my son attended. It’s not necessary. In fact, most students type notes. Cursive isn’t without its faults. When I realized cursive was no longer taught I thought it was my job as a parent (not the teachers) to teach longhand. One summer—being the wicked stepmother—I bought poor Harry cursive workbooks. He made it through two pages. I let him off the hook. He prints his signature… like most people his age do.

I cannot fathom not being able to write my signature in longhand, though. You would be shocked by the amount of time I practiced my author’s signature. This was my usual pastime in eighth grade algebra class. I created about four different ways of writing the capital letter, “D.” I’ve come to terms with not achieving fame, but you wouldn’t know it by my extravagant autograph!

Letter writing is not just cognitive, it’s physical which is why I think people have an issue with the actual act of writing. Hell, it hurts when you’re out of practice. Writing “Happy Holidays, Love (Insert Family Name)” fifty times during the holiday season, causes hand cramps. You shake it off and complain, “What’s the point?” Sure, it’s still fun putting stamps on the envelopes because that part feels like playing with stickers. How can you improve the dreaded writing of the holiday cards? I listen to “Christmas with Sinatra” and use a special pen that I only use to write my cards. If you go the special pen route, do make sure that you put it away in a safe place for next year. I caught my husband casually taking notes with my Santa pen during a work call one day. But more than that, don’t force it. There’s nothing stopping you from sending a New Year’s card, or writing a small note on a random day of the year. Honestly, those seem even more special because they’re not written in a factory line.

This brings me to the part where I must honor two great letter writers who continue the letter writing tradition—my pen pal, “Papa George,” or George Dilworth, and my dear Uncle Jeff.

Papa George is the king of letter writing. He not only keeps me abreast of his present state of affairs, but he also includes boyhood memories, poems he wrote, his favorite authors (oftentimes with quotes), and his favorite musicians with titles that I Google and listen to. His letters aren’t always full of optimism. He shares his upsets as well. He typically writes on lined legal paper, filling up both sides, but sometimes he sends a card knowing I love cards. I get several letters a month and he has made me a better letter writer. When I travel, I’ve started documenting my daily adventures and I send him pamphlets from museums or tours—my “letterly” destinations.

Most hotels still provide stationary and envelopes. I used to ignore them. Not anymore. I write my pen pal.

As for Uncle Jeff. Year after year, my family eagerly awaits Uncle Jeff’s annual Christmas letter where he documents the past year. Uncle Jeff doesn’t hold back and we all snigger about the great detail with which he chronicles items such as stomach maladies. Oh, he goes there, folks.

See? That’s what makes a good letter. Papa George and Uncle Jeff don’t sugarcoat life like you get with social media. That’s solely people posting their carefully curated items from their “best of” collection. False realism. In reality, life is so Greek—a mix of comedy and tragedy. Tell the truth. It’s way more interesting.

If you enjoy receiving letters you must, must, must respond. It’s give and take. So, two Christmases ago, Uncle Jeff sent his annual Christmas card, but it felt a little light. No synopsis of the year. No dodgy stomach ailments. The whole family grumbled, “We have been cheated!

Uncle Jeff, where is our annual holiday letter?” He explained, “No one else puts any time into writing letters, why should I?” He was absolutely right, of course. Don’t be that person who simply stamps their name under Merry Christmas and Happy New Year, Happy Hanukkah, Happy Kwanza. Say something. Tell them something quirky about your year, heck, tell them about the bad sushi you ate two months ago. I assure you the reader will find it amusing. It works for Uncle Jeff; it’ll work for you. Uncle Jeff did bring the letter back the following year, by the way, and now my sister, Aleea, has taken up the tradition, so there is hope. I also asked Uncle Jeff to send me all the Christmas letters he has ever written. I hope to put them together for the family one day. He was surprised by how much family history he had documented with those letters.

Flashback: In an effort to introduce American students to different cultures and to assist students from other countries with practicing writing in English, in the seventh grade my teacher told us to select a country and gender because we were getting pen pals. I always went for the Italian boys. I couldn’t wait to get airmail envelopes with exotic stamps, filled with the sheerest, most delicate paper you could actually see through. You can still get a pen pal today, but if you go that route, do be careful giving out personal information and certainly don’t wire your pen pal any money. Nowadays, most sites offer cyber pen pals. I’d list sites, but I don’t want to be responsible for when your not so “pally” pen pal hacks your identity. My years of working in financial crime have tainted me.

So, to avoid that (sorry pen pal sites), treat your friends and family like your new pen pal and send a card, letter, or postcard. Note: My postcards often end up in that blackhole I referenced previously, so you can always just write on them and pop them in an envelope. Or, here is another thought and something I practice myself, write a note to a family member and hide it somewhere in their house. It’s a small treat—the gift of words—but it goes a long way.

I’d love to hear from readers who decide, after reading my piece, to resurrect letter writing and send a letter or note to someone. Please share what you love and repost.