On letters

Over the weekend, I was organizing papers and files and clearing out a bin for a (long awaited) lager space to keep out notes, cards, and letters.  I didn't have time to re-read as much as I would have liked to, but the snippet here, the postcard there made me so happy.  I'm a spoiled girl, with letters from England, Spain, Germany, New Zealand, and all across the United States. 

 

This morning, one of my favorite bloggers posted "Why We Should Write Letters Again, Please."   This is a conversation my older brother and I have had many times.  They last.  Letters mean more.  [Just see Letters of Note.] The time they take to compose, the tangibility they convey, the distance they close - they mean so much to both parties.

As Fall is now decidedly upon us, and the natural inclination to stay close to the hearth has settled in our hearts, consider "posting" something more memorable than a message or tweet. 

"The proper definition of a man is an animal that writes letters" - Lewis Carroll

"How wonderful it is to be able to write someone a letter! To feel like conveying your thoughts to a person, to sit at your desk and pick up a pen, to put your thoughts into words like this is truly marvelous." - Haruki Murakami

"I have now attained the true art of letter-writing, which we are always told, is to express on paper exactly what one would say to the same person by word of mouth." - Jane Austen

For those days when you need to cry...

...read this.


If you're happily enjoying this sunny weather - keep doing that.


But.  If you want to read something beautiful and heart wrenching and tear-worthy.  Read that letter.

Dedication to The Chronicles of Narnia: the Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe

"My Dear Lucy,

I wrote this story for you, but when I began it I had not realized that girls grow quicker than books. As a result you are already too old for fairy tales, and by the time it is printed and bound you will be older still. But some day you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again. You can then take it down from some upper shelf, dust it, and tell me what you think of it. I shall probably be too deaf to hear, and too old to understand, a word you say, but I shall still beyour affectionate Godfather,
C.S. Lewis"

I love this quote... someday we will all be old enough to start reading fairy tales again...