Before the summer ended and it was time for me to return to campus for the new school year I was visiting my grandma, who we call Oma. Now, so I can paint a picture for you, Oma is the kind of woman who jokingly punched me in the arm after dinner one evening when she noticed I was finally taller than her, and who used to frequent refer to a certain pair of shoes as “the red shoes” in a thick Russian accent mimicking the voice of one of the main characters from the 1948 film. When I once commented on the big shiny cocktail ring she had chosen to wear one day, she replied that it was “so people have something nice to look at when I give them the finger.” My Oma would never give anyone the finger. But I’ve always loved her sass. At the end of this visit however, Oma said something decidedly less sassy. “Now I want you to write to me while you’re at school,” she said.
A little surprised, I replied with a sprightly, “Of course!”
Now I don’t know how close you, dear reader, are with your grandparents, but as far as my grandmother is concerned, if she says she wants you to write her, you better write her. As school began the first week was over before I could blink, then the second, and then the third, and that little lady’s voice was in the back of my head. I couldn’t let her down.
I had remembered that I had brought some envelopes and stamps with me from home for my freshman year, which, to no surprise, had remained unused for the next three years. Each year I had packed them to take to school with a stack of my favorite stationary, and each year they came home for the summer, untouched. This time, they wouldn’t. I took them out, hopped back up onto my bed, and figured out which stamp Oma would like best. I wrote her about how school was going, how I was going to miss my friends from campus after the year ended and we graduated, and in the post-script, included the definition for a new word I had come across that afternoon.
Writing to Oma was a satisfying experience. The careful curation of my words, the effort made not to leave out any of the interesting bits that had occurred that week, the grade-school effort as I tried to make my cursive as legible for her as I could, despite the fact that the inside of my English notebook looked a little less charming. It was both an emotional and physical sensation as my hand slid across the paper and my excitement grew as I imagined the smile on her face as she opened her mailbox.
As someone who uses a cell phone to do everything from venting about the most recent stressors of the week to scheduling lunch plans with my school mates all within a matter of minutes, I started to think about what it might do to change the habit I had fallen into and return to an older form of communication.
I decided to write a letter to someone each day for the next six days.
I wrote my first letter late one evening after I finished my homework. I thought about a set of my lime green cards, or the ones that said “Thinking of You” on the front. But instead I settled on a small collection of stark white 4”x 9” envelopes my mother had given me from her office. I thought those would be the perfect tabula rasa for my experiment, to let my words be the focus of what was inside.
I wrote to one of my best friends. We have been friends since I transferred to the same middle school as her in 5th grade and she’s essentially a sister to me. However over the last few years, because we go to school in different states, and our summers have been taken up by work in different states, we generally only hang out when we’re both back home for the holidays. Her friendship means the world to me so I knew I wanted to express that to her. I stayed up till nearly 1a.m. writing a four page letter about how school was going, the new crush I had developed, and how my family was doing. I had to laugh after I realized how much I had written, but proof-read my letter, folded it into a traditional trifold and stuck it in its envelope. Only then did I realize I had totally forgotten how to address an envelope. So I pulled up a reference photo online and got ready for the next five days. Maybe this whole letter-writing prospect was all slightly selfish, knowing you were putting a smile on someone’s face, but I also loved knowing they would have a memento of me to hold on to if they wanted, and be able to go back to my words later on.
The next letter I decided to write was to my dad. I sat down after classes had finished another day, pulled my letter writing supplies out of my backpack and started. Unlike my letter to my friend, I didn’t have much in particular I wanted to bring up. I just wanted to make his day by sending him something handwritten. We aren’t in constant communication with each other like my mom and I are. It’s not that he’s super reserved, but being the only girl out of three children my mom and I were always much closer. I thought he would particularly appreciate receiving a letter, especially since he has always been the one to tell my brothers and I growing up about the power of a letter to express our feelings, whether it was for a more personal birthday gift option, to say a few words at Thanksgiving, or just expressing your feelings for the ones you love. This letter has been one of my most rewarding; my dad and I are now communicating more frequently with each other, and have decided on making regular plans to spend time together, just the two of us.
The third letter I chose to write was the one I wanted to put off but knew deep down that it would mean the most to for me to send. Around last April I found out that my godfather was diagnosed with terminal cancer. The word “shocked” can’t fully describe how my whole family felt. It became both a blessing and a curse that I was at school and not at home where my family and godparents were. Over the course of the summer I got to spend time with him and his family several times, but the cancer was never mentioned. I didn’t bring it up myself because I was afraid I would fall apart. I eventually went back to school but had yet to talk to him about everything point blank, so I knew his was the letter I wanted to write next. I was on campus when I pulled out my paper yet again and collected the thoughts I wanted to say to a man who had helped raise me and shape me into who I am. While I wrote it I thought about how he would react to my letter, worrying I would only make him sad, but I had words I didn’t want him to go without hearing. While I don’t remember who it was, somebody told me that writing out your thoughts is the best way to process what you’re feeling. As I read the letter back to myself I realized it had definitely been cathartic. After waiting anxiously for his response letter, it finally came in my campus mail-box and reading his words back to me made me so thankful I had decided to write his letter. I don’t know what it is about writing, but it really does help you process things.
Having slightly drained myself in the last letter-writing process I decided that my next letter would be more light-hearted. This time I was going to send a letter to my aunt, just a simple surprise “thinking of you” letter. We keep in touch pretty well, but I knew she would be tickled all the same. Although we talk pretty regularly it felt like a special surprise to show her I was thinking about her; I also really enjoyed how this letter made me realize there didn’t have to be some grandiose event going on for me to write, but that it could be just-because. My next letter was also fairly simple in subject matter, but this one was going to be sent to my grandparents who live out of state. I don’t see them regularly, especially as they’ve gotten older. I can’t help but think about how my time left with them is limited. The last time I wrote them my grandmother wrote back on their behalf, telling me the latest about what they had been up to, and enclosed some photos of the house when it had snowed the winter before, and the berries they had picked to make jam with, as her handwritten captions explained on the back of each picture. I liked to think about them holding on to my letter as I’ve held on to those photographs, so I can think of them despite how far apart we are. I also enjoyed the idea of connecting with them through a form of communication that was used much more frequently amongst family and friends when they were my age, as opposed to how the instant messaging I’ve grown up with.
The last letter was another doozy. In one of my classes this semester we were talking about the tradition involved with the Jewish High Holiday Yom Kippur, which is a time of atonement for one’s sins. One component our teacher mentioned is that many people will go to a person they’ve wronged and ask them for forgiveness; there’s a whole process involved with receiving and facilitating such an apology. Our teacher invited us to think of such a person and, if we wanted to, ask them for forgiveness. Long story short, there was someone I wanted to apologize to. While we aren’t on speaking terms, I felt they would be open to receiving such a letter. Asking for forgiveness when you know you’ve hurt someone isn’t easy or enjoyable, but I knew it was something I wanted to do, and although I didn’t know how they would respond, I figured it couldn’t hurt so I tackled another mountain with pen and paper in hand. What I especially appreciated about written letters with this instance was how I had the ability to carefully choose and review my words before the other person heard them. In person, it can be easy for someone to forget things they wanted to say, or speak in-concisely, but a written letter allowed me to double check what I was saying was to the point I was trying to make.
All of these letters, I noticed by the end of my experiment, were attempts to let the people in my life know that I care about them. I think the most rewarding letters were the ones in which I expressed what was so hard to say in person.
So what made writing a letter so special? I think it’s the simple fact that you’re expressing your love for someone. When you write a letter, you take time out of your day to dedicate to that person, and by putting your thoughts onto paper through a much more involved process than an instant text message, the person receiving your note knows you wanted to differentiate the message it contained from others they’ve received. And I’ve got to admit it certainly makes you feel warm and fuzzy inside as you realize they’ll know you thought of them and cared enough to take the time to express that.
There was also something else. This experiment only confirmed that I am a sentimental person. It’s definitely something I’ve realized more and more as I’ve gotten older, but it’s not always something I can easily express. The tactile nature of letter writing not only lends itself to a romantic sense about it, but conveys a sense of warmth that a cold cellphone screen inhibits from being expressed.
Although it was only a week long experience I already know that writing letters is going to become a more frequent part of my life. While it most likely won’t be daily, it’s certainly become a more beloved way for me to spread some old-fashioned sentiment.