I thought I'd add a "bonus blog post" because...well...because I've been thinking. And pondering, mulling, contemplating, musing and considering....
As I’ve reflected on my travel writing over these last 5 weeks, I’ve been reminded of the importance of letter writing. Joe and I wrote letters to each other for 5 years. In those 5 years we saw each other for a total of about 20 days.
It was the mid to late 80s.
We had no cell phones, no Skype, no Facebook, no texting, no social media, no Twitter, no FaceTime, no snapchat, no Linkedin, no YouTube, no Flickr.
We wrote letters.
Handwritten letters.
Letters on paper with real words, not in text-speak with abbreviations and a lower case "i" instead of the pronoun "I."
I decorated envelopes, licked stamps, and mailed letters. I waited three or four days for the next coveted envelope to arrive in my SUPO box.
One of my favorite letters from Joe contained a couple of beautiful, colorful, fall leaves from Annapolis. Growing up in Phoenix, I had never experienced a changing season. I had never seen leaves those colors. He was sending me a piece of a the country I had never experienced. I remember touching and smelling those leaves. He brought Annapolis to me through an envelope.
I think that handwritten letters are a lost art. We live in such an instant world. As a whole, we are impatient when we need to wait. But there is something to be said about delayed gratification. The anticipation and expectation of a letter from a friend or lover can be exhilarating. Letters can be savored over and over again.
In addition, I think Joe and I have been able to sustain our marriage through long deployments because we can go back to the old ways and mail letters. It is a comfortable way to communicate for the two of us.
In fact, Joe saved every letter that I sent to him from 1985 - 1990. He also saved every letter that I wrote to him while he was deployed to Qatar. Someday, maybe we can publish a book like Nancy Reagan’s I Love You, Ronnie.
This course is called Rhetoric of Travel Writing. Think about it! All of those letters "traveled" across the country. Some of those letters "traveled" across oceans, back and forth across foreign countries. All of those letters contained writing. Writing that connected two "geographically separated people who were able to establish an ongoing relationship."
I wonder now, as I think about our story. Do other people value a handwritten letter? I found two TEDTalks (Lakshmi Pratury and Hannah Brencher) that I thought mirrored my sentiments. Enjoy!
As I’ve reflected on my travel writing over these last 5 weeks, I’ve been reminded of the importance of letter writing. Joe and I wrote letters to each other for 5 years. In those 5 years we saw each other for a total of about 20 days.
It was the mid to late 80s.
We had no cell phones, no Skype, no Facebook, no texting, no social media, no Twitter, no FaceTime, no snapchat, no Linkedin, no YouTube, no Flickr.
We wrote letters.
Handwritten letters.
Letters on paper with real words, not in text-speak with abbreviations and a lower case "i" instead of the pronoun "I."
I decorated envelopes, licked stamps, and mailed letters. I waited three or four days for the next coveted envelope to arrive in my SUPO box.
One of my favorite letters from Joe contained a couple of beautiful, colorful, fall leaves from Annapolis. Growing up in Phoenix, I had never experienced a changing season. I had never seen leaves those colors. He was sending me a piece of a the country I had never experienced. I remember touching and smelling those leaves. He brought Annapolis to me through an envelope.
I think that handwritten letters are a lost art. We live in such an instant world. As a whole, we are impatient when we need to wait. But there is something to be said about delayed gratification. The anticipation and expectation of a letter from a friend or lover can be exhilarating. Letters can be savored over and over again.
In addition, I think Joe and I have been able to sustain our marriage through long deployments because we can go back to the old ways and mail letters. It is a comfortable way to communicate for the two of us.
In fact, Joe saved every letter that I sent to him from 1985 - 1990. He also saved every letter that I wrote to him while he was deployed to Qatar. Someday, maybe we can publish a book like Nancy Reagan’s I Love You, Ronnie.
This course is called Rhetoric of Travel Writing. Think about it! All of those letters "traveled" across the country. Some of those letters "traveled" across oceans, back and forth across foreign countries. All of those letters contained writing. Writing that connected two "geographically separated people who were able to establish an ongoing relationship."
I wonder now, as I think about our story. Do other people value a handwritten letter? I found two TEDTalks (Lakshmi Pratury and Hannah Brencher) that I thought mirrored my sentiments. Enjoy!