It’s Friday in Chestertown. The gods of summer have granted one more day of reprieve from the heat. I’ve even turned off the AC, giving the unit a chance to rest from its nearly constant activity of late. I’m working on my Alaska essay today, trying to figure out how best to tell the story of that wonderful, complicated place. I won’t bore you with the details of the current mess, but I hope that it will be an interesting read when I’m done.
I’ve been thinking about letters lately. I haven’t really written them in years, given how busy I am and that Robbi, the person I’d be most likely to write, is usually no more than 15 feet away. I write dozens of emails each day, but as I do, I notice there’s a difference between writing an email and writing a letter. In general, emails are about communicating information—the who, what, when, and where of things. Transactional discourse, at best.
Letters, on the other hand, are about spending time with someone, luxuriating in shared thoughts and observations. Because they live on paper and require and envelope and stamp, they represent a greater commitment. You don’t off-handedly write a letter to someone. There is significance in the medium itself. They contain information, to be sure, but tend to trend more toward poetry, tend to be more focused on the pleasures of langauge. One puts something of himself in a letter, whereas emails tend to be so devoid of character that there’s danger in trying to communicate with any subtlety. My trademark dry humor tends to fall flat in emails, the readers of which are accustomed to straightforward communication and are less prepared for humor. I sometimes have to write back and explain myself when a joke has failed. I know that emoticons have been developed to help with this disconnect, but homie don’t use emoticons.
While Robbi has been gone, I’ve been writing her a letter a day, and in so doing, am remembering the pleasure of it. I used to write Robbi a lot of letters. We corresponded for a year before the official start of our “relationship.” We wrote several times each day, exchanging stories, thoughts, ideas, and observations. But what we were really doing was spending time together, carving out space in every day to commune as best we could across the miles between Williamstown, where I lived, and Philadelphia, where she was a gallery assistant.
Writing letters is the only way I can spend time with her these days, putting my thoughts to paper and sending them off into the void. I know her well enough by now to predict when she would smile, what phrases would delight her, how she might react to an observation about my day.
And that is enough to make me feel connected. In fact, I doubt she’s getting my letters. They are probably sitting in a PO Box across the Bay from where she’s fishing. It’s the height of the fishing season now, so there probably isn’t time to get in the skiff and go to Egegik to check the mail. But the act of writing is an end it itself. She’ll read my words at some point. For now, just writing them gives me a chance to sit with her a while each day.
But given that the letter-writing bug is alive in me, I thought I’d try an experiment. I have a proposition for you readers. If you are interested in getting a letter from me, leave a comment to this post and email me with your address, and I will write you a letter. I aim to spend an entire day writing letters. I’ll do it on Monday while others are off frolicking at the beach and baking in the sun. Anyone who asks for one between now and then will get a letter from me. I cannot vouch for what I might send you, but I guarantee that it will contain words.
The analytics suggest that thousands of people read this blog, so I may be getting in over my head, but here is my promise: if you comment, I will send you a letter. Monday could be a very long day.
So let me know. People say they lament not getting letters any more. But I like writing them. And Idiots’Books is about paper, envelopes, and the mail. I’m game if you are.
Dear Matthew,
My first inclination upon reading your post, was to comment that yes, I would be honored to receive a letter from you. I consider letters to be gifts, and lament their demise.
When I was a kid, I wrote a lot of letters. I was particularly religious about thank you notes, which got me a lot of kudos, especially given that I was one of four kids, the other three being boys who would rather have done anything other than put pen to paper. Truth is, I liked the entire process, picking the paper, using special cartridge pens and personalizing with hand drawn designs, laboring over my penmanship, thinking about what to say, how best to say it, and then the whole act of signing, sealing and delivering. (I even had a wax sealing kit for a while.) I would then imagine my letter reaching it’s destination, the receiver opening it, and marveling.
I still write proper thank you notes, and have ingrained that habit in my son. He does it better than I, of which I’m proud. (Course, his father, a real writer, has provided the better training and example, while I have followed with the requisite motherly nagging.)
So, long letter short, thanks for a lovely reminder of the pleasure of letter writing. Which brings me to admit my second thoughts on being one of the first to ask for a letter from you, which consisted of something along the lines of, why the heck would Matthew Swanson want to write me a letter? That said, if the list gets really long, or if you find yourself “in the zone” of creative fervor on one of your projects, by all means, put me by the wayside and know that you have already provided a wonderful gift in your thoughtful post.
Thanks for sharing.
Best,
Clare
P.S. I think part of the reason I like blogging, is for how it reminds me of letter exchanging. This in turn, reminds me of how much I liked having a pen pal when I was a kid.
Clare,
I appreciate your reticence, but choose to disregard it. Your letter will be the first thing I write upon rising on Monday. One other fellow actually wrote me first, but given that he did not follow instructions, writing me an email instead of commenting, he gets moved further down the queue. I wonder if the timing of my appeal might compromise the number of responses. It is, after all, the Friday prior to the Fourth of July holiday. I assume the readership has better things to do this weekend than read this blog and ask for letters. Perhaps this task will be far easier than I had anticipated. Perhaps you will, as a result, get a really long letter.
Thanks for your interest. I’m so glad to have struck a chord.
Matthew
Dear Matthew,
I know someone who treasures the art of writing letters, who haunts displays of letterpress paper (and longs to learn to use a press), and who loves to send picture postcards as well. She actually writes back. I have the benefit of this, often once a week or more. It is a whole wonderful way of thinking of and sharing with friends and loved ones that I commend to everyone.
It doesn’t fit with your instructions, but I’m going to ask you to write her, if you have a hankering to twirl a quill feather on the holiday morn — I figure that’s not outrageous since you know her. I’ll send you her summer address by email. (If you write her, please explain how it came to be, even though she’s developing a sixth sense that her mother often lurks somewhere in the shadows of these things.)
If you’ll send my girl your family’s address in Alaska, I’ll bet she’ll send the kids a postcard or two, as well – getting mail is always sort of magic, even at Alden’s age.
Enjoy your morning of old-fashion virtue.
Carry on.
Virginia
Hello all,
Interestingly, two of the people who have responded so far have asked me to write letters for someone other than themselves. I’m all for this, in case you are thinking along these lines but are worried about “breaking the rules.” If you’d prefer that I write a letter to your grandma, girlfriend, or high school gym teacher, just met me know, and I’ll do it.
I am to please. Can you tell I’m grasping for ways to occupy myself.
High school gym teacher? Come on. I must be in a desperate state.
Matthew
Instead of writing me a letter, could you write my master’s thesis? I mean, if you’re looking for something to do. I’d suck it up and finish it, but I have some important naps to take.
Tell me the topic, and I’ll be glad to. Seriously. It’s been a while since I’ve written that sort of thing, but I need a challenge. Be sure to include the requisite word count and the name of your advisor. Note: I will cite no sources other than my own imagination.
We would be so excited to receive a letter. And perhaps that will inspire me to actually complete my annual goal of sending Robbi a letter while she’s in AK. (I’ve slacked off for a few years, I must admit.) I have some great letters and postcards that she sent me from AK back in the day.
I’ll be eager to add your letter to my keepsake letter box, where it can join the ranks of Robbi’s letters, notes from old boyfriends, cards from grandparents, and letters from my penpal in New Zealand (from grades 3-5).
Hope your writing is going well. Good luck!
Cathy,
You’re on. Old boyfriends? I thought Neil was your one and only.
Matthew
Dear Matthew,
I think I’ve shared with you the story of the lonely 11th-grade girl who wrote long letters to a casual friend who had graduated and gone off to college. The girl enclosed riddles without answers, puzzles minus solutions, jokes sans punchlines, never above bribing the boy to write back. He always did (and once remarked that he liked the puzzles but would happily still write without them). Email eventually came on the scene, facilitating communication. That girl is now holding their son and commenting on blog posts, and she continues to have a soft spot for pen-to-page letters.
-Brandy
Sweet! I knew there had to be a better way to do this than all that research crap.
Topic: language, communication and censorship in Tom Stoppard’s DOGG’S HAMLET, CAHOOT’S MACBETH
Word Count: 12,000-13,000
Advisor: Colesworthy
It would be good if you could name drop some literary theorists, or at least people who sound like they could be literary theorists. Like with French and German names.
Letter me.
Ooh! Bring it on! Yay!!!
Newly broken-hearted, I suffer the unholy torture of actually dreading visits to my mailbox, enabler of the unremitting reminders of a defunct relationship that are a trio of gift subscriptions (-not- my Idiots’Books subscription, thank god).
Methinks a good, old-fashioned letter might be just the thing for restoring my mailbox to its proper place as an agent of wonder and delight.
No pressure.
Holly,
You’re on, though it sounds like your current dramas are far more compelling than whatever I might come up with. If you feel so compelled, please send a letter of your own with all the juicy bits. Consider me a good sounding board for almost anonymous venting.
Sorry you’re feeling blue. I’ll do my very best to help you turn the corner.
Hang in there,
Matthew
I’d like to write Robbi a “note” and send it to Alaska. I can’t commit to a letter.
Additionally, I do enjoy your writing and I especially enjoyed your comments about Robbi and letter writing.
I think a lot, and often, of the two of you, separately and together-ly.
Your fan,
Katherine
Hello Katherine,
We think of you all the time, too, especially now that your beautiful paining lives here with us.
As for this note to Robbi, I know she’d love to hear from you. The address is:
Robbi Behr
c/o David Hadden
PO Box 39
Egegik, AK, 99579
Now, for the important question: Are you asking me to send you a letter, too? It’s a bit unclear.
I can’t remember the last time I received a real letter, what a great idea! I would like one too please.
Alex and I would love a letter from you, Matthew :]
Is it still Monday?! Am I too late?.. perhaps by now you have collapsed into a pool of your own self-loathing after offering to write letters to people in a time when even the smallest hint of personal contact sends people into a spiral of glee and admiration thus taking up hours and hours of your time.
Time difference notwithstanding, a letter from you would lift the hangover of London Gay Pride that was Saturday and the misery of this morning when the postman sensitively delivered letters from MBNA, Capital One and Barclays Bank. Thank you pretendy-human letter-writing computers.
And I miss the US terribly… after a magical trip I am back to the cold (okay thats a lie, its like 32 degrees Celcius today), harsh reality of London and something a bit fabulous in the mail would absolutely take my mind off of BP and the Queen.
All the best,
Scott
Scott, Scott, Scott,
If you are going to purport to love the USA, could you be so kind as to convert your Byzantine system of temperature measurement to one that has some meaning on this side of the pond? To us enlightened folks, 32 means freezing, which seems like pure bliss in the context of this wasteland of heat and humidity.
I will write you a letter, but only because it’s still technically Monday and because you seem to be so blue. Far be it from me to contribute to your funk.
Another reason to live in America. The banks could not possibly have sent you mail today because the Postal employees are home celebrating our independence. From whom, you ask?
You know the answer.
Matthew
PS – for those of you not in the know, Scott is a Brit, a point of shame he’ll never outlive, I suspect.
Matthew,
I don’t need a letter, but this idea is just fab. Keep up the good work!
Charity
PS: The addition problem before the submit comment button always gives me some anxiety. Why can’t I add 7 and 13 more easily?
Charity,
You might not NEED a letter, but do you want one? I’m catching up with a few late responders right now. I’d be happy to add you to the mix. I’m having a great time.
And I’ll concur that math is hard. I’ve more than once screwed up and had to type my comment over again from scratch. I wish that Robbi had chosen a different sort of metric when designing the site.
I’m baffled, because I know for a fact that she’s no good at math either.
Matthew
Perhaps my computer was converting measurements into their ‘correct’ format before posting as what I actually meant to say was that it was 89 degrees on Monday. Clearly. (Rookie mistake!).
‘Independence from whom?’..hmm.. my history lessons escape me. An imperialistic and war-like nation full of people with bad teeth and bad attitudes I suspect.
And nothing could lift my shame… I simply wallow in it and use the Couchsurfing Project to surround myself with (hot) people who seem to have a positive impression of Mother England.
Matthew,
This is obviously a late addition to the comment wall, but I just caught up on the last week’s posts. It’s great that you have more time to write now, because we get more to read! However, your missing your kids and Robbi chokes me right up. Only 14 more days. 2 measly weeks! You can do it!
This post was a wonderful reminder of the joys of letter writing. A childhood friend of mine and I exchanged letters once a day for several years, beginning in 4th grade. Of course this stream of letters diminished to once a week, once a month, then once every few months. Now, we do birthday cards only. It’s a bit sad to think about, but we remain close and in touch. I will write her again soon. Your writing Robbi daily also reminded me that I should write to Joe more often. Like you two, we see each other a whole lot every day. But the occasional letter will be something we can hold onto over the years. Leading up to our wedding in October, this could be a very special project!
So, thank you, for writing, and reminding others to write!
From The Barn in Williamstown