Posted on:Nov 06 2020
Craving connection?
Join the club.
Tired of screens?
Me too.
Want to transform some angst into action?
Yes, please!
What a perfect time for handwritten letters, notes, and cards to make a comeback!
What a great tonic for the isolation we’re all feeling right now!
It’s pretty much universal how we delight in receiving a handwritten letter - we’re surprised, excited, grateful. And if it’s around your 5th birthday and it’s from your Nana and Gramps, there might even be a crisp five dollar bill tucked inside and wasn’t that just the best?!
Woe is me over how we use technology to condense our thoughts and feelings down to itty-bits of text, tapped with emojis, bereft of much creativity and thoughtfulness, fired off in seconds into the ether.
But make no mistake, a handwritten letter leaves technology in the dust when it comes to all the ways it conveys thoughtfulness, from the choice of paper to the type of card, from the color of ink in your pen to the stamp you choose, from licking the envelope to dropping it through the mail slot. It’s a personal experience, start to finish, and - bonus - a perfect opportunity to practice your cursive! (I’m out of touch - do kids even learn cursive handwriting in third grade these days?)
I sure hope so because a person’s handwriting is so, well, personal. Unique, like a fingerprint. I can picture my Nana’s beautiful calligraphic style...my dad’s physician/EKG style...my older brother’s all caps...the difference between my two sons’ handwriting...then and now. All evoke a powerful emotion of humanness, the arc of time.
Practically speaking, writing is an essential communication skill. It is improved - and I’d say it becomes more fun - with practice. You can play with your vocabulary and exercise your critical thinking skills and hone clarity and conciseness. All around, it makes you a better communicator and that’s a useful thing throughout your life.
Letter writing in particular is a wonderful opportunity to be creative and engage both sides of the brain - creativity influences the words you choose and how you string them together, also how you read and interpret the words. Extra brain-firing points for clever doodles and illustrations. 😉
A particular benefit of letter writing in our fast-paced world is the opportunity to, you guessed it, slooooow down. It’s a gift of time, not only for the writer as we articulate our thoughts and feelings, but also for the reader : scientifically, you spend more time reading a handwritten note because it can’t be skimmed the way you can skim a font on a screen. (But of course you're not skimming this blog, right?!) Reading slowly seems to happen naturally, because we want to savor the words, experience the handwriting, honor the writer for having taken the time...
Slowing down also relieves stress and who doesn’t need that these days? Writing is meditative, calming, even if you’re writing about the things that stress you out. Research has shown that writing it down shrinks the impact, lets some air out of the tires.
We’re all struggling with our respective pandemic experience and a serious component of that is feeling isolated and lonely. We create a deeper connection when we choose to take the time to articulate our thoughts and feelings in writing...it’s more intimate and meaningful...and in the act of forming the letters, you might articulate feelings you never knew you had...or find clarity around an issue you didn’t know how to move forward...or renew your gratitude - the health benefits of gratitude are real.
Then there’s the historical artifact element. I read one of my Gram’s letters and go right back to that period of time and what was going on, what life was like back then. Someday, someone will read your letters and be transported, reminded.
It’s hard to put a value on a handwritten letter, but it’s both physical and emotional and, I believe, doesn’t go unnoticed by the receiver. Unlike a digital message that gets deleted or lost in the endless string, a card or letter can be held, opened, unfolded, turned over, smelled...or proudly displayed on the fridge or your special bulletin board...or used as a bookmark...or shared...or stored in a box of keepsakes.
Fortunately, options abound for reviving this tradition. You can go fancy stationery and swanky pen or yellow legal pad with a Bic. You can browse notecards at your favorite bookstore (I always find ones that make me laugh) or go for the ultimate in special - handmade. Blue or black ink. Felt tip or ballpoint. Newspaper clippings, a fun sticker, a few crisp birthday bills?
It’s all good. Because you took the time.
And time is a gift.
Someone in your life will be delighted to hear from you, I promise.
