Monday, April 30, 2012

Snail Mail - The Personal Touch



Today I received snail mail! Not a bill snail mail or junk snail mail, but a real letter personally addressed to me!  This gift of a handwritten note on this dreary wet day brought golden rays of sunshine into my life and joy into my heart.

Artist and friend Christine Cantow Smith of Aunt Bean Artworks sent me snail mail, a set of her wonderful cards and a beautiful handwritten note.  What a blessing and joy it was to receive this gift.


Yes Christine I love surprises! Thank you so very much!


The cards are beautiful, wonderfully crafted with a very professional feel to them. I will be putting in a order for your Frolicking Series!


In her note to me Christine gave me pause to wonder about what has happened to the hand written note?

In our fast paced world of modern technology where we jot off emails or send a quick text message how much are we giving up.  Growing up in the age before computers I remember having pen pals gleaned from the Vancouver Sun Newspaper, these pen pals were from within 1 - 3 hours driving distance from my home, not far at all as we see it today but back then they were major distances.  I remember the excitement of receiving a piece of snail mail, seeing that handwritten envelope with MY name on it, inspecting the stamp, anticipating the words inside.  Reading the letters over and over and then so carefully, using my best handwriting, nicest pen, and unlined paper crafting a reply.

Today in this age of modern technology I have exchanged those pen pals with online friends, we communicate via online, receive instant responses, share our life experiences as they happen, it has it's place and I love it but sometimes it's nice to receive a personal letter, to go through the ritual of making a cup of tea and settling down in a favorite chair to read the news of a cherished friend.

What about you, do you still use the personal touch and send mail, what are your thoughts re: email vs snail mail?

"Let us then leave behind letters 
of love and friendship, family
and devotion, hope and consolation, 
so that future generations 
will know what we valued and 
believed and achieved."

-Marian Wright Edelman,
From the foreword of Letters of a Nation



2 comments:

  1. Virginia G.1:17 PM

    I so miss "the written word"...I loved writing letters (and receiving them too). I remember purchasing stationery sets and always trying to find just the right pen and being so intrigued when someone (usually older) would pull out a stack of letters all bound together with something a simple as a rubber band or with a beautiful piece of ribbon. Sadly, it seems to have become a lost art.

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  2. Me too Virginia. I wish I had saved all my letters, I think about the history they would have contained, little common everyday things that I've now forgotten but a re-reading of one of those letters would have jogged the memory. One of my treasures is an old envelope on which my dad had left me a note that he had gone to the pub for a hotdog, it was handwritten and one of only two pieces I have of his handwritting.

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