I recently received a letter in the mail.  Not some commercial printed for the masses kind of letter, a real letter.  A letter written by a person…someone I knew.  I received a handcrafted letter written specifically for me.  I’ll even go as far to share that not only was this letter hand written, it was written on regular ol’ lined notepad paper.

Interesting and quite odd I thought after opening the very plain white envelope and unfolding the one-page letter.  Those who know me best know that that I do buck the technology wave once in a while; but a hand written letter delivered by U.S. mail rather than a social media inbox, this letter truly came via a communication throw back machine. Something even I wasn’t used to.

At first I was so distracted by the materialistic form of the communication I couldn’t just read the letter, I had to examine it.  I examined every side of it and checked out the obvious last-minute fold that allowed the letter to fit inside a smaller mismatched envelope.  I marveled at the hand written words albeit there were only enough to fill one paragraph.  I kept flipping the note over and back again as if examining a piece of metal debris from a UFO that fell from the sky.  I looked at it as if I’ve never seen a hand written letter before in my life.  I decided after a while to just get on with it and read.

There came a point though in which I realized I’d have to respond.  That meant I had to respond in the same fashion…a handwritten letter.  EGADS! I haven’t hand written a letter in a very long time.  I’ve composed a trillion emails, texts and IMs and I’ve even written a few notes inside of greeting cards but that’s different (and I don’t think thank you notes count either).

Panic eventually subsided and I composed my response.  I have to admit though that I kind of cheated, I composed my letter on the computer.  And while I did take the time to carefully choose my words again, I cheated by taking advantage of spell check.

When I was pleased with my letter I printed it out on beautiful recycled craft paper, made the standard triple letter-fold and realized I didn’t have any matching envelopes.  I quickly made a last minute tail-end fold and carefully placed it inside the smaller mismatched envelope, addressed it, popped a stamp on it and out it went.

*farewell my little letter, travel safe*

I don’t think I’ll ever do that again…

Meaning next time I’ll have matching stationary so my letters don’t travel in smaller mismatched envelopes.

Shortly after I said farewell to my letter I went out and purchased beautiful stationary and wrote a short letter to my mother.

There was something very grounding about writing a real letter as opposed to sending an email or text.  Hand writing a letter forces one to really think about what’s most important to say or share.  Limited real estate, no backspace key, autocorrect or spell check most definitely ensures that everything your pen puts on that paper is really well thought out and matters.

Focusing my energy on the thoughts I was sharing and the person I was sharing them with was unavoidable.   I could feel my energy being imparted within that letter – I doubt that happens with an email at least not to this extent.  There was nothing else I could focus on while composing my letter.  I was a captive audience and I loved it!

I’m really glad I received that letter in the mail.  Obviously I was glad to hear from the person who wrote it but that letter gave me a little nudge to allow myself to communicate with those I care most about in a more meaningful way now and then.

*I think I’ll buy a fancy pen*

I am,
The Urban Mountaineer