Update, Dec. 2008: This blog’s first post was an attempt at laying out a format guideline I’d hoped to adhere to. That lasted about two weeks. I still feel the same way about writing letters, though. Wish I did it more often.
I’ve called this blog Letters Home to You because I plan to write in a style reminiscent of one of my favourite activities: letter-writing. Some will read like letters to Mom, some like letters to one or both of my brothers, some will be letters to my dear friends T, M, M, F, R, or D, all of whom live one hell of a long way away from where I do now.
This is the loneliness of the long-distance expat. Having left behind my home province of British Columbia, Canada 17 ago, I’ve lived for longer periods in Quebec, Hong Kong, and now Hamburg, Germany. At each stop along the way, life developed, friendships grew, some have stayed, some withered away. But those who have stayed with me, will always be with me.
I think that’s because they grew in a time when communication near or far took place the old-fashioned way: telephone, face-to-face or pen to paper.
But we now live in an age where very few people write by hand anything more poetic or noteworthy than a shopping list. We write text messages in crypto-shorthand, bursts on an email text line, one-word answers to complicated questions, rapidity and accessibility replacing contemplation, reflection, time for thoughts to ripen and from that, ink to flow.
I realise I can’t turn back the clock. The task of taking out sheets of paper, writing a letter in longhand, writing out the address, fishing stamps out of a drawer for a combination to make one euro and 70 cents to Hong Kong, the US or Canada which the German post office can’t seem to stock so I’m always scrounging around for an extra 10-cent stamp somewhere… affixing stamps to envelope, remembering to leave letter by the door, head out to find the post box… It has taken on the scale, planning and execution of an art project, with similar results: stunned silence. Who writes letters any more?
I do. If I haven’t written in a while, now’s the time to catch up.
- Ian
© 2007 lettershometoyou
Quel plaisir de te lire, Ian!
Aime beaucoup tes observations sur Londres, les voyage, l’exil….
Pourquoi ne pas écrire quelques textes en français (et allemand) aussi?
Bravo!
A+
Max
Merci Max!
Un A+ d’un prof aussi réputé que toi, quelle honneur!
Salut et à bientôt,
Ian
Congratulations, Ian. I enjoyed reading it and will check it out from time to time. Yes, I will be back in Leipzig this summer (from May 2 to July 28).
Cordially,
Jean-Claude
Thanks Jean-Claude, hope to see you back here and also in Germany!
Letter-writing is indeed a little-used form of communication now, but I’m hopeful it won’t disappear completely. I confess I never seem to get TUIT, but I frequently compose the first paragraph or so in my head which is start. Sending a postcard while on vacation is about it.
I am always mindful of an article in The Beaver a few years ago when I think of how little we send by post anymore. The author was writing about communication with home in the 18th century. It was not uncommon for a seafarer’s letters to take two or more years to get back to Ol’ Blighty, and, of course, a similar amount of time in the opposite direction. The hard part was getting the letter into the hands of its recipient, given that ships tend to be away from port a lot. The article was illustrated with excerpts from letters between a sailor and his new bride. In her first letter, she wrote of the birth of their first child. He received it over two years later, and wrote back full of joy and love for his wife and child and how he hoped to be home soon. The next letter from home reached him when he was about a year away from getting back to England. It told of the death of the child the year before. I found it monumentally heart-breaking to read them. News, good or bad, was outdated almost before the ink dried.
By that standard, a letter taking a week or 10 days to get round the planet is light-speed.
heck, we don’t even take the time to use a decent fountain pen to write with anymore. In a throw-away culture where instant gratification and go-go-go is the pace of our lives is it any wonder that rarely do we sit down at a desk with a good pen, a bottle of ink, and some fine paper to compose a letter to some-one far away?
Hi Ian,
The trick to writing letters the hands-on way is to be prepared. Enjoy the experience of choosing fine paper, shopping for the perfect pen, picking up bottles of coloured ink and keeping them where you can easily use them. I bought an antique ink blotter to place beside my pens and inks and always have a little box with stamps in my desk. By removing the barriers, it’s much easier to sit down and dash off a note. And we all know how wonderful it is to receive a real letter in your mailbox. It’s always the first one eagerly torn open.
Nice concept, Ian.
Wendy
Gordon,
The Beaver? Would you call that a pelt mag?
Reminds me of a Somerset Maugham short story set in a 19th-century colonial jungle outpost. The governor would read his Times of London every day in the order they were printed. Six months late.
Wendy,
Great advice on the letter-writing front! Do you still correspond very much the old-fashioned way? Let me guess: you use the stationery you designed yourself, right?
-Ian