Back when I had a printer that worked and recipients that responded I used to write a lot of letters. And even before that, prior to old age and arthritis setting in, I used to hand write long newsy letters. I enjoyed letter writing, of keeping in touch across the distance and the years. But now the Art of Lettering Writing has apparently died and I felt like one of the last of the Letter Writing Dinosaurs. A stubborn Dinosaur that kept writing letters that eventually never received a response. Maybe they were considered passé, replaced by more convenient technological advances and now more of a nuisance than the attempt to preserve and maintain relationship with steady written contact transcending distance... I don't know? I just know that after a time of sending letters out and having few, if any, letters coming in, there just didn't seem to be a point to it anymore. Reciprocity is after all the Balance that fuels continuity of most things and failure of reciprocity usually leads to the demise of anything after a time, when nobody wants to bother doing it anymore.
Sure, I still enjoyed writing as much as I ever did... but now I had to switch gears and formats for it to survive, to seem relevant and worth the time and effort put into it, though it seemed so much more impersonal and voyueristic in these new forms, which I wasn't initially comfortable with at all. Of writing on a Blog in Cyberspace, with much shorter and edited Posts than my letter's content ever had... and no particular audience or recipient, offered up to whoever showed up. Which seemed kind of strange and somewhat risky and vulnerable since you don't always know who shows up or why... or how much to Share and put out there for any random visitor to receive? Or short blurbs on Facebook, which usually just seemed so shallow, severely edited and random that the connection just isn't the same or as meaningful an exchange and so I never showed up as often and often lost interest quickly myself. And Twitter or Texting... forget about it... never sent one or bothered reading one, never will, the brevity of it seems almost like an afterthought in the communication process. If what you have to say has to be said in a hurry and edited in so few words, it's barely an improvement over Silence to me.
I have developed Blog Friendships and apparently this Blog is read regularly by some and appreciated by more than a few, so at least it seems relevant enough to maintain a presence here and invest in... and when it's not, I probably won't bother and it will go the way of letter writing and be abandoned. And I try to check in with Facebook and my E-Mails more regularly so that folks don't feel ignored when I haven't responded in a dog's age and seem to have fallen off the grid, I really do... but its just not the same as the exchange of letters that I miss so much. Letters which I eagerly anticipated receiving through the Mail because they were absolutely personal and relational... a meaningful exchange between two people on purpose. I would often read them more than once and respond to them right away in detail... sharing our lives, our feelings and thoughts more intimately and less guarded because mostly and generally only the chosen recipient would see the content in privacy and confidentiality. It was the next best thing to being there in person with each other.
Source: Bing Images ~ realsimple.com
The Grandchildren have a saying that 'Sharing Is Caring' and I would have to agree... shared Communication specifically. Now sometimes when I'm in the Mood to write a real letter, I just sit here and write a letter which nobody will ever see and I will never print out. A letter I will delete as soon as I'm finished with going thru the motions... or have said all I want to say in this moment and get it out in written form and released. Not into a real letter, something personal to someone specific and into the Mailbox anymore... but just pretend... a letter written to no-one... a letter to and for myself really because it's process is familiar and I miss doing it. And it won't matter to anyone but me since I'm the only one that will ever know it's content... and I've come to be Okay with that in a way... because it's the way it now 'Is' and there's no going back to how it 'Was'. And because the only things that survive are those things that manage to adapt and change. But I Honestly can't say that all Change is good... or necessarily better... and I Wonder if a Generation that never sends or receives a written letter in their lifetime will even realize what they missed?
Blessings from the Arizona Desert... Dawn... The Bohemian