I checked the mail today, found nothing, and progressed directly to a state of disgruntledness. Today seemed like a good day for a letter of some kind. It would have improved my frame of mind, at least.
But the old adage (what my mother often said to me, and I've a feeling it has been said by others) is true. To get mail you have to send mail. No wonder my mailbox is empty.
I have written my fair share of letters in my time. Various people have at various times been my correspondents, and samples of my youthful prolixity with a pen are probably still floating around. I learned the art of letter-writing young, and I've been honing the craft ever since my first encounters with the alphabet. I present to you now the lessons that I've learned. It is both easier and much harder than it sounds.
The enemy of letter-writing is procrastination. I put off other things, like returning phone calls, but writing a letter seems like a greater effort. Instinctively everyone knows this, and the joy of getting mail from another human being is directly tied to the deeply-felt knowledge that it cost something, literally and metaphorically, to get the message into your hands. Putting off the writing is the slipperiest of all slopes. Months will be gone in seconds - months that seemed unending in all other respects. Time passes differently with regard to writing letters. You have to be prompt, for your own sake.
If you can muster up the willpower to get the thing addressed and correctly stamped and into the care of the postman, it's amazing what follows. People will write back. Every so often someone else will take the initiative and a golden missive will arrive unexpected, but in my experience, waiting for someone else to make things happen is a lost cause. My mother is a champion letter-writer, but very (very) few other people will dash off a letter in the middle of the week just to say hello. You have to be the bigger man.
I have a pen pal who used to pass notes to me in the hallway at school. She moved to a distant state, and we took to patronizing the postal service to maintain our stream of notes. The stream diminished to a trickle. Letter-writing is not for the faint of heart. But it has been almost seven years, and she and I are still fighting the good fight. Our letters are punctuated by months, but we have kept on, and intend to keep going.
It's easy to get someone's address. If they even suspect that you will send them mail, most of your friends will be quite eager to share.
I wrote two letters today. Once I had decided that I would do it, the writing was simple and heralded a feeling of supreme accomplishment. I won't pretend that making up one's mind to do the writing isn't somehow, inexplicably difficult - for most people, it is.
But my friends, take heart! You are capable. You can write a letter.
And if you want to get one, you'll have to send one first . . .
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