Then I started writing e-mail.
Then I stopped writing letters.
This upsets me. I love knowing that I can go to the closet, take out an old shoebox and read old letters. There is something amazing about seeing that person's handwriting and smelling the mustiness of it all.
Time marches on, I suppose. E-mail makes things so easy. I save some e-mails but it just isn't the same as a letter. Even if I went on a crusade to write letters again (which I'm not), I can't imagine many people would actually take the time to write back. But when I look at this amazing telegram that my grandfather sent to my grandmother (he was out of town) on the night that World War II ended, I feel like we as a society are missing out on something big. Now a message like this would be e-mailed and immediately discarded rather than saved and cherished sixty years later.
Another analog note:
I used to put together photo albums/ scrapbooks. I loved compiling photos, ticket stubs, and other assorted nonsense.
Over time, I have amassed an unwieldy amount of photo albums. I used to love showing visiting friends and family my albums. Eventually, that practice slowed to a trickle. When I started putting pictures on the internet, my photo albums increasingly started to become an afterthought. A bulky, dusty afterthought.
Finally, my photo album compiling has come to an end. Why bother? They just take up needed space. And why pay to send away for prints that aren't as sharp or impressive as they would be on the computer screen?
But just like I lament the loss of my letter writing days, I feel a certain sadness over the ever increasing digitalization of my life.
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6 comments:
I do feel your pain. Sort of. I also like to go through old letters and while I save emails, something always seems to happen and I often lose them after 2-4 years (email server crashes, accidental deletion of folders, death of computer, etc etc). Perhaps this post will encourage me to go back and copy paste them into a word file and print it out and stick it in my box of letters.
On the photo albums - we are majorly into them, as well, but they more and more are minimalist (big surprise, huh?). Wes still takes photos in black and white with my family heirloom 1969 Nikon, so we have our artsy vacation pics that way. Toss in just a couple of color digital prints from my crappy camera, and we have all major trips and events recorded nicely. We boil them down to a small handful of pictures and Wes arfully mounts them into snazzy photo albums. Everything in his life is fully represented since the birth of Gargantuan Man Boy (1990). Me, well... mine are a little more cluttered but *almost* fully represent life since 1989.
My rambling point was to say that maybe you still want to photo albums but make them more a representation of each trip or event rather than an attempt to cover every aspect of them. Works for us.
There were a lot of typos in that.
That telegram is amazing. I have one pen pal, an old family friend, and we have promised only to communicate via mail (and occasionally phone). I love the mail too much to stop.
"And I love it. I love everything that's old: old
friends, old times, old manners, old books, old wine; and I believe, Dorothy (taking her hand), you'll own I have been pretty fond of an old wife".
Lord Hardcastle from 'She Stoops to Conquer'
You almost made me cry.
I have, in my English attic an entire realm of old letters and journals dating back to the late 80's, In New York I have dozens and dozens of letters, cards and various other dating paraphanalia from my experiences with Beth. I simply adore the idea that one day, some friend, grandchild or other such type will stumble across such a collection. Beth makes wonderful scrapbooks of our vacations full of maps and pictures.
I should write more letters, I write damn fine letters.
Dan,
That telegram was incredibly moving...so sweet and so real. It's stuff like that that keeps me checking in.
I'd welcome your expert critique on my attempt to mass-distribute a mix cd via my blog, when you have the chance...
Please keep it up, my man...
I too am a letter fanatic. My Grandma and I communicate that way also and I just recently got a wonderful multi-page letter from her. I try to always keep cool paper/envelopes on hand just to inspire me to write more letters. It works too.
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