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This week, CNN reported President Donald Trump had a letter hand delivered to North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, as the two leaders continue their ongoing denuclearization negotiation talks. It seems they have quite a growing epistolary relationship growing. Back in September, The Week reported Trump said of Kim, "I like him. He likes me. I guess that's okay. Am I allowed to say that? We would go back and forth, and then we fell in love. He wrote me beautiful letters. And they are great letters. We fell in love." "Fell in love!" Wowza! Is the way to Trump's heart through letters. Who would've thunk? The romance of letters knows no bounds. Man oh man, how I’d love to see the contents of the letter Kim wrote Trump to make him wax on so! On a related topic, it has also come to my attention that Trump considers himself a handwriting expert. Perhaps he should "Make handwriting great again!" Oy! 
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Today, the Wall Street Journal reported the unintended consequences of deleting your Facebook account is that you delete your memory too. Facebook’s barrage of reminders seem to be the only way a majority of its users remembered their “friends’” birthdays. So with the deletion of their account, so went social mores of wishing others happy birthday. Ha!
The article quotes John Allison, a U.K.-based comic artist and writer, as saying, “Just like we used to in ancient history in 2006, I’m going to walk right up to them and say, ‘When is your birthday?’ ” He intends to not only talk to his friends (gasp!) but record his friends' birthdays in a physical notebook with a pen! Ha, again! The tortoise takes the lead again! Tortoise 2, Hare 0 -if anyone is counting ;) John Donne, the great English poet, once said, “more than kisses, letters mingle souls.” Amen to that, JD!
Chi Luu, a computational linguist, beautifully summarizes the history of letters and how although they began by performing a public, professional function and eventually became the private language of women describing their lives and inner most thoughts, in a style that is conversational and spontaneous. In this way, letters are the true reflections of the inner thoughts of an era and purely demonstrate the language and mores of that time. Luu cites a letter Jane Austen wrote her sister Cassandra in 1801: I have now attained the true art of letter writing, which we are always told, is to express on paper exactly what one would say to the same person by word of mouth; I have been talking to you almost as fast as I could the whole of this letter. I love this concept and hope we can get back to this. We dash off emails and texts (I'm the worst offender) but now that we have technology, it can push us to be even more creative, thoughtful and patient in mingling with other souls.  The New Yorker’s Mallory Rice describes a much needed funeral director’s condolence letter writing workshop. Cunningham, the funeral director, outlines fades in writing condolence letters (who knew?!). Two examples are: the phrase “passed away” is out, “died” is in. And don’t say, “I know how you feel” or “This is God’s plan” (definitely good advice.)
She draws from literary condolences: Don’t be too chipper and don’t make it all about you (although the Queen of England gets a pass). And finally, she recognizes Emily Dickinson and Marcel Proust as the condolence letter superstars. Dickinson sent a sequence of condolence letters with flowers from her garden at difference stages of grief. Proust would be so sad, he would go on for pages and pages. Three cheers for them, though not so chipper cheers, please. The main message is write just the letter. Isn’t that always the case!?  Alan Henry, the editor of Smarter Living, a section of the New York Times “that aims to help readers live better, healthier, happier lives” wrote an article this week titled, “The Gear You Need for a New Year (and a New You)."
The first thing Henry suggests is, “A notebook and pen for all those notes and to-dos.” He recommends his favorite journals, fountain pens and pencils, check it out. He also references an earlier NYT article that summarizes research which found that students who used laptops to take notes versus pen and paper had a substantially worse understanding of class lectures (as measured by a standardized test) than those who took notes with pen and paper. The reasoning behind this is super interesting. Because we can type faster than we can write, if we type what we hear we spend less time processing what we’re hearing. If we hand write, we have to process and condense what we hear to write it down. It’s like the race between the tortoise and the hare. The tortoise wins again! Thank you @halophoenix Because letters are not texts or emails, we have to write them differently. I find myself being more creative with the content of letters since I won't get a response for days or, more likely, weeks.
I started to explore literary salutations and found myself quite amused. Check these out: Adieu! take care of yourself; and, I entreat you, write! This is from Frankenstein. If it has anything to do with the monster, I'd do what he says. I kiss you, From Tolstoy. Okay, do it! I love the present tense! Your old friend and erstwhile companion, From Margaret Atwood's Alias Grace. Erstwhile is a great word but if you're my former companion, why are you still writing me? You bastard. Call a spade a spade, George Sanders. A tender adieu. Tender is a nice touch Jack Kerouac. Me. I wouldn't have thought Chekhov would be so self centered. As quoted on the homepage: "You should sit in meditation for 20 minutes a day, unless you’re too busy. Then you should sit for an hour."
I would argue the same could be said of writing. Writing is a form of meditation. It makes us stop, be present, focus and slow down. Writing letters is therapeutic, not only for the sender but also for the receiver. Studies show that we greatly underestimate how happy we make people by writing them a letter. Yesterday in the New York Times, Farhad Manjoo, the former tech columnist, recommended meditating every day as a technology detox. Let's meditate in the form of letter writing. Write someone a letter today. And see what happens! |
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