LETTER FROM AROUND THE WORLD

The postcard below, I received in 1997 from my Grandma June.  There were a few times when she escaped the harsh Wisconsin winters and visited friends in Arizona.  In this postcard, Grandma June is visiting the Grand Canyon and wrote:

                  Hi Maria, A teenager threw his tennis shoe into the canyon and you couldn’t 
                  even see where it landed.  Love Grandma

POSTCARD FROM GRANDMA JUNE 1997

She was my first pen pal and I would wager that I have had an average of at least one to four pen pals at various times for the last 15 years of my life.  Even though the letters I received from my Grandma were usually on the short side, I was always excited to receive something in the mail.  I believe there is something timeless about writing a letter to person and then waiting days or weeks for them to receive it.  It reminds me of the early settlers leaving behind European roots for the New World and to never to return home, only through the words on paper that they sent across the ocean hoping it would make it to the hands of their loved ones.

With internet and text messaging and all other technological ways we communicate that are usually fast and quick ways to talk with our friends down the block or in another country.  I often use the powers of modern communication myself, but when you take the time to construct a hand written letter to a specific loved one, you tend to put more thought into your words.  For example when you are texting someone it is a ongoing conversation constantly going back and forth, where you both keep responding to the others remarks and most likely in incomplete sentences and using an acronyms, such as LOL.  A letter starts off as a one sided conversation where you are composing your thoughts and ideas to a friend in the hopes that they will respond back with their own words and thoughts.   

When browsing at your local book store you will sometime come across books such as Letter of Ernest Hemingway.  You can still find entire books completely based on letter from famous writers, such as Virginia Woolf and F. Scott Fitzgerald, and collection of condolence letters that Abraham Lincoln wrote during the Civil War. When old letters of historical figures are discovered we get a small glimpse into the thoughts and emotions of the actual person and not just what has been written in history books.  I often wonder if someday in the near future there will be electronic books called Text Messages of Love: Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie or Famous Tweets of Barack Obama.
 

I have corresponded with friends and family members across the United States and around the world.  While my good friend Angela was in the Peace Corps in Costa Rica I had to write her letters to communicate with her.  Since she was in a small village, that did not have a strong internet connection this was our main source of communication for those two years.  I remember I sent her a care package once and included a tea sampler.  She wrote back that her host family, whom she was staying with, had never seen so many different types of teas before. 

DINOSAURS I-10 CABAZON, CALIFORNIA 2013

My longest correspondence has been with my friend, Brittany, who was fellow Co-President of College Feminist at UWM when I was undergraduate.  She has been living out in San Francisco for about ten years now and we are still writing letters to each other every few months.  Talking about books we have read, dreams of finding a new jobs, trying to start families, and many other subjects. 

TONGARIRO NATIONAL PARK, NEW ZEALAND

My friend Katie Mac, is currently living in Wellington, New Zealand, the land of Hobbits.  She sends me cards with the breath taking views of that island country.  A few winters ago, Katie Mac described having a BBQ in 80 degree weather on Christmas day, while I was dealing the cold and dark winters of Wisconsin.  It felt like she was living it up in King’s Landing and I was trapped in Winterfell.  I have now mixed both Lord of the Rings and A Game of Thrones references into the same paragraph making it official that I am a nerd when it comes to fantasy adventure books and movies.   

To conclude, I know many of you are sending out Christmas cards to your family and friends in the last few weeks, which is wonderful.  However, I would really recommend sending letters to those you love through-out the year.  I know it’s a lot easier to “like” someone’s profile picture on Facebook, but it means so much more to send that person a letter in the mail.  I know that the letters people have sent me over the years have meant so much to me and I continue to do my best to write them back.