The more care that goes into a letter, the more love you feel on its receipt, which is why we should send more of them, writes Donna McLean.
I had one of those chats on Twitter at the weekend that got me thinking. About letter writing.
Someone said they were tempted to start writing traditional letters again – what did we all think?
For me, there was no hesitation. There is no joy like a handwritten letter or card, especially an unexpected one. Not for your birthday, not for Christmas. One that feels like a moment in time, one that is pertinent right now.
A wee: “Hello, how are you?” on some nice paper, or a well-chosen postcard. A moment of slowing down, of pausing, when the world seems to be spinning off its axis with one bombardment of awful news after another.
During lockdown, I resurrected this long-lost habit of handwritten notes. I was isolating, just with my children, miles away from family, and I was already overstimulated by screens. Remember all those Zoom quizzes and Skype birthdays? Don’t even mention Teams.
Writing and receiving letters again brought back memories
Getting a proper letter through the post became such an important connection. A card through the letterbox sent by an old friend from home, a letter with a small gift from a new-found Twitter pal, with promises to meet up “once all of this was over”.
It reminded me of the various pen pals I had at school, met on every holiday to Blackpool or Nottingham. I kept in contact with one of them for years. After we lost touch, I saw her on TV, trying to find her missing brother, and we began talking again. (It was a happy ending – they were reunited.)
It reminded me, too, of the nights spent writing long letters to my friend Rowan, when she moved to Japan for a year. I was working shifts, including sleepovers, in a hostel, and never managed a solid night’s sleep.
My letters staved off loneliness and offered snippets of my new life, as well as cementing our years of companionship and shared memories, normality, and nostalgia.
Notes penned with care make us feel loved
When I left home, letter writing was a substitute for not seeing my granny most days, as I had always done. We would write once a week, her letters much neater and more descriptive than mine.
We kept that correspondence going for a decade, until just before she died. Of course, I would visit home regularly, and we would talk on the phone several times a week – more often once I had one in my own flat, rather than the communal hallway. But the letters were special; unequalled.
My dear friend, A, sadly died by suicide three years ago. For a couple of years before she died, she travelled around a fair bit: Thailand, Australia, Japan.
Frida Kahlo to Diego Rivera – often spiky. Virginia Woolf to Vita Sackville-West and vice versa – full of longing. James Joyce to Nora Barnacle – absolutely not suitable for work
She would send a letter from each place, a noticeably different stamp for each new address, on a different type of fancy, local paper. Always personal, always distinctive.
Letters tell you something about the writer’s personality that emails never can. The more care that goes into the letter, the more love you feel on its receipt.
When I was younger, I was fascinated by other people’s letters, especially those from and to artists and writers. Frida Kahlo to Diego Rivera – often spiky. Virginia Woolf to Vita Sackville-West and vice versa – full of longing. James Joyce to Nora Barnacle – absolutely not suitable for work.
Practising the art again
We often keep our cards and letters in boxes; precious things that survive the people we lose. What about the letters from lovers who have long since left our lives? The bundles of distinctive notes, breaking-up letters, making-up letters, and the same all over again.
A letter in a padded envelope, explaining the choices and chronology of the enclosed mix cassette tape – songs made especially for you, labelled with a message only you would understand. I hope, in the age of technology that we find ourselves in, that this gift isn’t lost to my children, when the time comes for them to fall in love for the first time.
After my recent Twitter letter chat, I decided that the next opportunity for me to resurrect my letter writing habit again would be Christmas. Remember the old days when relatives who’d emigrated to a faraway continent would send a couple of pages of catch-up tales on that thin, Basildon Bond notepaper, neatly folded inside the koalas at Christmas card?
I’m going to buy some delicate writing paper, if I can find it, then try and improve my terrible handwriting. Practise writing a few lines to pop inside my lovely art deco cards.
You can hold me to it. You can even join in, if you like.
Donna McLean is originally from Ayrshire and is a mum of twins, writer and activist
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