Handwriting

The other night I decided it was time to declutter the counter space of the hutch in our kitchen, which was overflowing with magazines, catalogs, receipts, markers, and various other bits and pieces of paper.  In other words, "stuff".  As I dug down through the stuff, I discovered the Christmas cards that someone (it could even have been me) had placed there.

I decided that before I tossed them in the recycle bin, I should probably go through them and see if any addresses had changed just in case I decide to become the Mom of Motivated and send out my own 2018 Christmas cards (this probably will not happen, but you never know). As I worked my way through the pile, I discovered an anomaly: one of the cards had a handwritten note in it.  Not just a scrawled "Merry Christmas!" or "Happy Holidays", either; this was a legit, actual letter.

I couldn't remember the last time someone had written me a letter; or for that matter, the last time I'd written someone else a letter.  The Grandpa of No is fond of sending brief notes along with newspaper articles he thinks I'll find interesting, usually about the rising cost of college, but he's really the only one.

I don't even produce anything handwritten anymore.  I'm old enough to remember learning how to write cursive as a class in second grade, making the K's and the Q's that looked like big 2's and the M's over and over again on paper with special lines until my letters met my teacher's exacting penmanship standards. In college I took spiral bound notebooks full of handwritten notes that ended up in the trashcan (this was before recycling was a thing) as soon as I'd taken the final exam.  For awhile I wrote letters to my friends, until we got busy and distracted and lost track of each other, and to my step-grandmother, who would respond with gracefully written notes written on elegant little cards .  After I got married, I wrote thank you notes, like a good bride. 

Then e-mail happened.

These days, I don't even really write checks; I just scrawl a lazy version of my signature on those electronic pads with the plastic stylus or whatever that writing implement is called.  If the nun from my second grade class saw what has become of my handwriting, she would be truly appalled.

So here I was, with this handwritten letter.  Drop me a line, the last paragraph said, when you have a chance.  I'd love to know how you and the family are doing.

So I did.  I hunted down a notecard and an envelope, I located my reading glasses and a pen, I sat down at the kitchen table,  and I started to write a letter.  The Dad of No walked by and asked me what I was doing.  Writing a letter, I told him.

He just shook his head and said something about he didn't know people still did that or it had been a long time since anyone he knew had written a letter.  He was astonished to see what I was doing, I could tell.

Writing that letter was actually rather challenging.  I had to think about what I wanted to say, because I didn't want to make a mess of my one notecard and I couldn't go through and cut and paste and delete at will.  Once I put the words down they were there to stay, so writing this letter required some discipline and planning.  I wrote about the Teenager graduating from high school in June, my birding adventures, The Son of Never Stops Eating's basketball triumphs.  I closed the letter, put it in the envelope, and put a stamp on it.

Maybe I should write more letters.  It's kind of fun to get a letter in the mail, as opposed to what we usually get which is bills, packets of coupons for duct cleaning and maid services, college brochures, flyers advertising "free" college application seminars where you learn all the "big secrets to the FAFSA!", and, currently, political advertisements that I peruse for misspelled words and grammatical errors and then toss in the recycle bin. Sewing is apparently back "in"; maybe writing letters will be next! I could be the Mom of Setting A New Trend!

I still probably won't send out any Christmas cards next year, though.