No one writes letters anymore

Looby has always written the best letters, especially her yearly letters to Santa Claus

No one writes letters anymore, and love letters even less, when Jean-Paul Satre proposed to  Simone De Beauvoir, she famously shunned his offer of marriage and they embarked on a life-long open relationship but over many years he would send her letters, beautiful handwritten letters, we're not all existential philosophers and we live in a world where you can quite easily get by without the need for pen or paper but I would love to bring back the lost art of letter writing.

We still have the need for beautiful words but the way that  we consume them is so different now, it was only a few days ago when I felt the need to write something important I felt with all of my heart, on a better day I would have written it in a card and sent it through the post and then waited for the recipient to read it and then maybe reply by post but then we'd never get anywhere would we? 

I remember in my teens having a boyfriend who was far away, he would write me letters every couple of days and I would write them back, it was like we knew each others soul and it was worth waiting for the postman with almost painful expectation.

I'm going to let you into a secret, I have an inability to write in any kind of text-speak or shorthand, I want to squeeze in every single beautiful word possible and this works well in the case of letters, it does not, however, sit so well in text messages etc!  I should also tell you that anyone who's close enough to me to keep in touch on a daily basis will probably already know it's not really a secret.  I speak in longhand, I write in longhand, as I lay in bed a few evenings ago writing an impassioned message in Whatsapp with my finger wishing I could be slightly more abbreviated, I thought to myself, William Shakespeare would have been horrified if he had to write with just one finger!

I am not sure anyone who I speak to regularly ever sends me messages quite as long as the ones I send them but I shan't apologise for if I do speak to you regularly it's because you are always in my thoughts, I realise I have, a life, which lets me have the freedom to be mostly always available or to send quick messages in quiet moments, so I don't expect replies to all of my words and photos but you should know this, I live a bit of a solitary life sometimes, I don't get the watercooler moments and some days the only company I have is my dog so I depend on those electronic messages to get me through the day.  It's my window to the outside universe.

So here's a challenge, why not treat yourself or someone else to a great Parker pen or a fabulous writing set and sit down to write a card or letter or the next time someone sends you a Whatsapp message which stretches for 3 whole screens appreciate the fact that someone took the time to do that just for you, it was actually probably me!



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