wondering

So the postman beat me to the mailbox. I had letters to post but he was gone before ten( some 5 hours before his usual time!).  There was mail in the box. Notice I say mail not letters. Letters rarely make their way to my box.

Letters those missive detailing the joys, pains, hopes, and news of family were handwritten and brought the writer's voice to the reader. In past times letters were written to invite, congratulate and to comfort and mail was delivered several times a day to handle the flow in bigger cities. They connected family, bonded relationships and broke them too.They were a staple of life and checking attic boxes one often find stashes of letters between people covering years of the correspondents lives.

The telephone stopped many of the letters to and from people in the same city. The phone was good but a degree of intimacy was lost. Perhaps due to party lines. However email has created a new correspondence. It can and does maintain contact but much of it any more consists of advertisements and political sentiment. Too many emails are not personal and end up in the trash. This has affected the flow of relationships which email might have enhanced.

My grandmothers both sides lived far from me but their letters to me kept us close. I learned of their lives and the lives of my kinfolks near them. They learned of my schooldays, my small wins, and my first years as a teacher. What riches those letters held  and how they blessed me with wisdom and love.

Pencils were part of my life also. Those beautiful stamps lit up my life, and the letters detailed a life  I might otherwise not have known. My two longest were from Greece and England. Kathy and I still exchange letters after nearly fifty years. I have visited her several times and she has visited me. A simple hello my name is and I am ??? years old letter opened a new world.

So I miss the envelopes addressed by hand containing love, news and thoughts about life. Mail comes to my house. Advertisements, charities with hands out(some I support) political messages and bills  fill my box. I take them out and walk to the trash barrel and only the bills go in to my house. It makes for less clutter but also less connection.

Frankly I miss letters.