...three off-golden pups in a field of spot-on-golden
wildflowers on a greeting card…a note of gratitude my sister sent…a friendly
correspondence that reminds me I am loved as I read and reread the lifelong-familiar
penmanship…
...an ocean-scape of a beloved place near my old buddy’s
home…there is no holiday to celebrate, no “reason” for handwritten notes when
email has sufficed for fourteen years in the long gaps in geographic
proximity…but there it is in my hand, the welcome, navy blue, thick, ink and the date,
as always, scrawled across the upper right hand corner…just as my contemporary
has done for nearly a decade and a half…
...and, the letter – four pages of jokes, poignant gratitude,
incidental news, light-hearted complaints, and heartfelt praise…postmarked,
stamped and completely expected: a thank you note for a recent gift…from my mom
who is old and who will always write letters...
I treasure these postage-stamped, postmarked correspondences
sitting on my desk today. They will remain on display until my workspace gets
overfull. If I’m really lucky they will be replaced by others that will arrive
in my mailbox, carried by a postman in blue, shoved into the mail slot in the
side of the garage, and opened in celebration at the end of a long workday. They
are hard copies. Made from trees that I likewise adore. Each has its own
coloration, smell, wrinkle-factor. The ink is swirled into the handwriting of
my loved ones – their faces I can evoke as I read the words, seeing their
fingers holding a pen poised over paper on the other sides of continents and
oceans. I guess I’m a little bit old-fashioned, as are these family members and
friends of mine. No matter how electronic we become, there will be – for some
of us – nothing better to cherish than a pen-scribed note on a card with an
image chosen just for the receiver, and sent by airplane, truck and foot, paid
for with adhesive postage stamps that are cancelled by the dated postmark.
I love email and text message correspondence. But any day of
the week I prefer hard copy over e- copy.
All blog photographs taken by Jennifer J. Wilhoit unless otherwise noted.
