Life Coaching, Observations, Reflections, Things that make you go hmmmmm
Have you ever received a letter?
No, not like in a welcome from your new bank or local chapter of the Willie Wonka Candy Crush Club.
I was sitting on the patio of a favoured coffee spot and one of the good coffee elves asked me what I was doing as what I was doing didn’t include my computer. I had my big book of blank pages open in front of me and one of my 2 pens in hand. I have other utensils that make inky marks but they aint pens!
I told the good elf I was writing a letter to a cousin. I asked if they’d ever received a letter and I was told no. We talked for just a couple minutes and the Elf made the bank reference. I said, “that’s a shame”.
For those of you that are semantically challenged, in this usage, shame can also be interpreted as unfortunate and/or sad. No person real or imagined was shamed or ashamed.
I’ve received and written and sent letters. Recently I received a letter from South Korea written by a lovely lady that I had the good fortune to encounter. You can read about her and me and our prattling in my “Foreign Liaisons” piece.
I care to share something with all of you that the Lady said to me in her letter.
Being a Torontonian and a life long Boston Bruins fan, I’m not really buying that Montreal part. Centre Hice, TABERNAC! That would be a cultural reference so don’t go offending me by appropriating it!
A letter, the second one I’ve written to the Lady is making its way from me to her. I say in my letter, we Canadians are for the most part, a good people. I didn’t bust the Lady’s Montreal bubble.
Have you ever written a letter to someone and later been told by that person how it made them feel when they discovered your hand-written letter waiting for them? When they told you about that letter you sent, were you exhilarated?
If you’ve written a letter to someone, how did you feel when you were writing that letter? Were you more reflective? Were you more thoughtful and deliberate with that which you put down so as not to mar the page with strikeouts? When you were writing the letter did you appreciate that time within your own head?
There were a couple letters I wrote that I didn’t send. Have you ever written your heart out in a letter and not sent it?
If you did send a letter, did you make it so the person you sent your letter to could take it to their dreams without having to remember what you wrote? Was the letter you sent scented?
Do you care to share what you felt when you tucked that scented letter you received partly under your pillow? How’d you sleep with that scented missive beside your head? Did you wake in the night and reach to make sure that letter was still there? How did you feel when your fingers touched the envelope and you knew that letter was right where you put it?
Did you maybe reach for that letter and it wasn’t there under your pillow? It felt so good when you discovered your letter had only slipped to the floor in your slumber didn’t it. Not a question. Would you care to offer up reasoning as to why my statement wasn’t a question?
When you retrieved that letter from the floor did it join other letters you’d received that had been bound together with ribbon?
How long did you hold that bundle of letters before tucking them safely in to your sock drawer? Socks and letters, both can be warm and fuzzy don’tcha know.
The handwritten letter is a wonderful thing. Cursive writing is pretty and has character. Have you ever wondered why there are so many elegantly flowing script fonts for your electronic use? Now you know.
My penmanship is far from the best and this is because my brain insists on moving faster than my hand. This is not unusual and can be somewhat counteracted with thought. You can counteract right up to the point your brain takes off leaving your hand behind. Trust me on this.
The state of the word as it lands on the page doesn’t stop me from writing by mine own hand. I have a journal too. If you would like to call it diary you are free to do so and it won’t phase me in the least because I’m just not that insecure in my sexuality.
This is mine. There are other Journals like it but this one is mine, unique. If you’d like one, write one and before you start, get a real pen and not some cheap writing utensil.
Good pens have a different feel. A good pen has substance just like those words you’re gifting to the page. In truth I call it bleeding on the page and if that analogy works for you, help yourself. A good pen doesn’t get heavy or uncomfortable in your hand.
There are a great many people who will tell you the “Art of Letter Writing” is gone. Those people will tell you that with our technology it is just oh so much easier and faster than writing a letter. Those people would be correct but what they don’t take in to consideration is how thoughtless emails and text messages are.
I have another letter to write that will give more context to a piece of the content in a previous letter. Yes, I know that sounds terribly clinical. All I did was tell you what I’m going to do and not how I’m going to do it. You already know what I say will be thoughtful and heartfelt.
A cup of coffee, a big book with blank pages, music playing and a pen. It appears I’m being threatened with a good time.
G.R. Hambley ©
October 13, 2017
Letters bound by ribbon from;
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