Thoughts on the worth of a handwritten letter.

Does paper ever get lonely?

Do you think it misses and longs for the human touch?

Instead of being coaxed and comforted with handwritten love letters, it is speed-forced through a printer and spat out the other end with inky black words singed on its flesh. A piece of paper gets one precious moment in life to shine.

Ponder this the next time you witness someone make a small error on a page and proceed to crumple up the entire paper. I wonder if letters would classify themselves as successes and failures? The successful page fulfills their destiny as a love letter. Failures succumb to a fate of ending up shriveled, unfinished, tossed into the garbage can; the recycling bin if they’re lucky to be reincarnated. Their existence is short-lived, abrupt, non-existent. Our letters and our paper deserve better. In fact, we deserve better.

What is a letter anyway?

We don’t call emails, blogs, or text messages “instant-letters.” A letter communicates something beyond information being sent and received. Is a letter simply a piece of paper, or something more? White, clean parchment, tattooed with pen.

Is it the ink or the pencil that defines a letter? Is it the way we structure the words on the page? Is it formal or casual? Professional or personal?

At what point does the page transform from a simple white nothing into a possession of profound sentiment? Does the “letter-fairy” dust magic over it when it is sent in the mail (don’t ask the mailman, he won’t be amused)? Is it a letter only when your official signature hits the page on the bottom, sealed with your approval?

My Definition of a Letter

I define a letter as a reflection of the writer at that very specific moment in time, captured on the page. When you send it off, near or far, you are both transporting and preserving a capsule of yourself, of your life. The paper has transformed into a platform. It allows you to share an idea, explore a thought, describe an experience, capture sensation. These words are not just for the writer. They possess the intention of being shared: recreating a joy, a knowledge. Packing it up and revealing that wonder to another.