I have always loved letters, correspondence that comes by what is now called "snail mail." I like the time it takes to travel distances, the time it takes to tear open the envelope, notice the post date, and wonder about its contents. I like the way it all feels in my hand - and increasingly, given that we live in an age of virtual and virtually instant communications, these letters are more precious than ever.
Lately, as part of some ill-defined on-going art project, I find myself illustrating envelopes. This is not new. I have been doing it for a very long time...now and then. It started (I think) with a letter I sent to an author I admired and has continued over the years. Most of the time I illuminate letters sent to me - but once in a while I will add a mini painting to a letter I will send. It slows down the mailing...but it gives me a little time to think, to consider, and to send (I hope) a blessing. When I find myself painting an envelope I have received, whether a letter or junk mail, I think about the sender - saying a prayer, and asking a blessing for every hand that touched it - from the sender to the mail carrier. Each has a life. Each has a set of joys and sorrows to carry.
It doesn't take long to make these illuminations - but in those few minutes, I have a chance to remember. To bless. To say yes and thank you.
I wish I were more faithful in my correspondence and my illustrated envelopes because when I practice this process and make another illuminated envelope, I realize again how connected we are. A string of lives, hand to hand, like one long relay race passing the letter/baton from one to another until it reaches the finish line.
When I was younger, I used to say that when I was (finally) an old woman, I would be one of those little old ladies who writes letters every day. I imagined writing thank you notes to local heroes, letters to my senators and our president and the young person who bags my groceries at the Kroger. I write a lot of thank you notes at work. But I no longer write the long letters I once wrote - and even this blog lags for weeks at a time. Why? The instant gratification of Facebook? Cellphones? Email? Maybe. I worry about this - at least a little. There is no paper archive for my Facebook account...no written records for the way Emily and Will can make me laugh. Oh, the times they are a changing...
But when I got my thank you from India, when I finished illuminating the envelope, I wondered when I would write the next letter...when would I take the time? And the weeks pass... I wonder, without letters, what archive will exist for each of us? Oh, I know, every tweet is archived in the Library of Congress. And, I have heard it said that once you post something on the web it lives forever. But, I know it isn't true. Pages are lost, links are broken, and then what?
Just this month, Kirsten and her sisters are pouring through a series of letters written by their father and mother in the early stages of their courtship and marriage. More than 60 years later they are transported to another time and place. They hear in these letters the voice of the father they knew so well - and the suggestion of the man they could never have known.
Without "hard copy," what will be lost? I keep thinking about 8-track tapes and reel to reel, VHS and Blu-Ray. Are we catching it all? Sure. Of course we are. But you know, I still hope I will become the little old lady who writes letters. And I hope that I will paint the envelopes and add sufficient postage and send them off into the relay of blessings.
Thinking of you more than you can know...
And, of course, loving you even more.
Amanda
