letters

Letters, I mean real handwritten letters on pretty papers from a loved one, a friend, a soulmate, don't seem to get written much anymore. It's an event that is missing in my life, at least. A personal letter amongst the rest of the mail is like finding a pretty stone, or a delicate shell, in the sand at the beach.

Perhaps email and weblogs are filling that niche. It does seem our psyches need to write it down. Journaling as a practice has been taken up by all sorts of people. Journaling serves all sorts of purposes, most of them private to the writer. Emails and weblogs, on the other hand, when shared as most are, become an interesting interpersonal transaction.

Emails and weblogs aren't usually overwrought works of art. The ones I enjoy most are thoughts and observations jotted down, almost as if on the fly, spontaneous, heartfelt, often witty and sharp, expressive of all sorts of emotions, attitudes and opinions. But perhaps what they all share is that we seem to have a built-in, almost primal, need to write down observations about our lives and then share them.

How delicious it is to peruse the "letters" of bloggers from all over the world who seem to feel it is important enough to pay attention, to observe the world around them and to write it down! Somehow, as one reads a thought or a detail as seen by another human being, it is as if we realize: Ah-ha! I recognize something about my world in what you said about your world, it's our world. Our world, our thoughts, the little everyday moments of our lives matter, even though most of our moments are not big ones. We matter, to each other.