Love Letters

I always fancied that life back when they wrote letters must have been better.  The idea of love letters always played at my imagination and dare I say, heartstrings as something that must be the ideal of romance and affection.

One of my favorite quotes from You Got Mail is:

Grandfather: ...Cecilia Kelly, lovely woman… I think we might’ve had a date once … or maybe we just exchanged letters… 
Joe Fox: You wrote her letters?
Grandfather: Mail, it was called mail…
Joe Fox: You know I’ve heard of it.
Grandfather: …Oh Cecilia had beautiful penmanship, she was too young for me, but … she was enchanting…" 

My husband is offshore every once in awhile and during those times we can only exchange emails.  And I have quickly realized that while the idea of beautifully written love letters seems enchanting they are harder than they seem.  Even just writing a regular letter is difficult.  I always fancied myself a writer, I like to write stories and poems, and yet something about speaking without talking and telling the story of a day is so extremely difficult.

There is the reality that my life is not altogether that interesting, but still, I am always surprised how difficult it is to be a truly great letter writer.  Every time I start I wish I was less colloquial, then less serious.  Perhaps fine pens and ink are required for wonderful letters.  Maybe there is something lost in the taping of keys that prevents the studied and graceful thoughts of historical letter writers.  Or maybe the practice and art of letter writing is just un-practiced and lost.  Either way,  I admire letter writers of ages past even more, and still long to write like that someday... With practice, maybe I will...

Today the Bright Side of Blue in my day is the possibility that someday, sometime, I will write one beautiful, graceful letter.  Until then my goal is simply to be more thoughtful in what I do write, less hurried, more patient with the effort it takes to say what I want to say without being able to speak or gesture or act.  I think that might be what makes letter writing so magical, is the love and patience it takes to truly put so much of oneself into words unspoken... even when the output is simple, the feeling is there.