The
Post Office has been operating at a deficit, our clue that one day in the foreseeable
future, there will be no such a thing as a handwritten letter. This tragedy is
due solely to the advent of email, instant messaging, and Twitter.
Letters
are paper memories of loved ones that we can forever keep, read, and remember.
When my mother reached the age of 98, she sent me a card with her favorite flower
on the front, a purple iris, and inside, she wrote the day, date, and time of
my birth. It was as much to let me know she was thinking of me, as it was a memory
exercise to keep her mind sharp.
I kept all her letters and notes, pages
yellowing, ink fading, scent ebbing like a shy sunset. Had she lived in today’s
world, she might have emailed instead, her thoughts perhaps less clear and easily
misunderstood, as is sometimes the case with email, in which, unlike the art of
letter writing, we do not strive for perfection. One thing I’m sure of, had email
been on the scene, Mother would not have needed spell check.
Letters are
reflections of life, much of which would be forgotten if not for those fluid scrawls
of handwriting, so easy to recognize, each different from the others. I still
have a childhood “contract,” handwritten and signed by my parents, stating that
if I would accept a new coat instead of a dog, they would allow me to get a pet
when I reached 16. That was their smart way of saying I wasn’t responsible enough
to care for a dog at the age of 8. They were right.
Handwritten notes,
including saved Post-its, from my own kids are mini-diaries of their lives. We’d
have fewer memories, had Instant Messaging been available, or email or Twitter.
I’ve got nothing against newer, faster methods of communication, but they fail
to evoke the feelings and memories as a handwritten letter does. Take Twitter
for example. It allows only 140 characters, including spaces. Removing adjectives
also removes the color and passion of thoughts.
What
would the world be reading today had Elizabeth Barrett’s classic love sonnet been
Tweeted to Robert Browning? The original reads:
How do I love thee?
Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of Being and ideal
Grace.
I love thee to the level of everyday's
Most quiet need, by sun
and candlelight.
I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;
I love thee
purely, as they turn from Praise.
I love thee with a passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.
I love thee with a love I
seemed to lose
With my lost saints, --- I love thee with the breath,
Smiles,
tears, of all my life! --- and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better
after death.
Barrett's sonnet has 613 characters. Tweeting Mr. Browning
would have meant cutting her work down to 140 characters, which might have looked
like this:
Lve u? Lts see
deep wide high
soul far out
candles
righteous dudes
humble dudes
passion faith
saints r out
laffs
cries
lifelong emotions
better dead
And
what about Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address?
Four score and seven years
ago our fathers brought forth, upon this continent, a new nation, conceived in
Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
Now
we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation
so conceived, and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met here on a great battlefield
of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of it as a final resting place
for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether
fitting and proper that we should do this.
But in a larger sense we can
not dedicate - we can not consecrate - we can not hallow this ground. The brave
men, living and dead, who struggled, here, have consecrated it far above our poor
power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember, what we
say here, but can never forget what they did here.
It is for us, the living,
rather to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they have, thus far,
so nobly carried on. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task
remaining before us - that from these honored dead we take increased devotion
to that cause for which they here gave the last full measure of devotion - that
we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain; that this
nation shall have a new birth of freedom; and that this government of the people,
by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.
Could
Lincoln have reduced it to 140 characters?
United States formed 87
yrs back
Decided all men same
Big fight anyway
Lots dead both sides,
not for nothing
freedom rocks
of, by, for, everyone
We
may be the last generation to get the full measure of someone’s thoughts, feelings,
and written words of historical importance. I have no letter from Barrett or Lincoln,
but I did find a personal letter of painful significance.
I’d written
it to myself and it turned up in the pages of an old book. There’s no date on
my tear-stained tale of getting dumped. It upsets me even now to read how much
he meant to me, and the pain he caused. There’s only one thing wrong: I forgot
to include the guy’s name, so I have no idea who he was, but I'm glad he left.
It
takes time and thought when we put pen to paper and compose a letter. If our thoughts
are unclear, we tear it up and start again. Mark Twain said it best: The difference
between the right word and almost the right word is the difference between lightning
and the lightning bug.
And he said it in only 122 characters. Including
spaces.
If the art of letter writing dies, then our last stand on behalf
of the Post Office is to continue mailing our payments. We cannot give in to pressure
already being applied for us to pay bills online. What, put our account numbers
and banking/credit card information on the World Wide Internet for hackers and
scammers to access? Hardly.
I’ll continue to mail checks and letters and
wait for a return of the Pony Express. Coast to coast took 10 days, and the only
difference between then and now is they needed someone to clean up after the horses.
Copyright Maggie
Van Ostrand
"A Balloon
In Cactus" August
31, 2009 column
More
Columns | Humor
| |
