Writing
Does Anyone Still Write Letters?
Other than me, that is.
Early in the Covid pandemic, when most of us were staying close to home and communicating by Zoom if at all, my friend Lani and I started writing letters to each other. Lani (not her real name) and I have known each other since we were about 12; we had been very close at times, quite distant at others. Still, the connection survived, even though we hadn’t lived in the same area since graduating from high school. One of us must have made the letter-writing suggestion over email. We agreed it was worth a try.
More than four years later, we’re still exchanging letters about once a month. Lani, a collector of fountain pens and exotic inks, writes her letters in the rounded cursive I remember from our adolescence. I compose mine on my laptop, although I always hand-address the envelopes. I select a postage stamp and walk the letter to the post office, about six blocks from my house. And then I wait for Lani’s response.
Lani is my only pen pal now, but there was a time — before cell phones, before email — when my life was full of letters. My parents wrote to me at summer camp; I wrote back about how much I missed them. My friends and I exchanged long, newsy letters when one of us moved away. Was there a love letter or two? There may have been.
