Lighting Anticipation's Fire

When was the last time you wrote a letter? Not simply a beautifully decorated, printed card, with verse and your signature, but an actual letter? In your own handwriting, with its unique flaws and flourishes, with messages from your heart to another? We telephone, we type, we e-mail, we jump in the vehicle at hand and race over to communicate . . . instant gratification. Think of it - your own words, written in your own style, sent to a favorite person. Waiting for the reply, a letter arrives in your mailbox, with accompanying anticipation and excitement as to its contents; or having received it, the pleasure and happiness upon opening and reading a personal, specific connection with another's thoughts, committed to paper and available to be read again at your leisure. Not so many years ago, friendships and relationships were often kept alive and new by the exchange of letters. The small bit of time it may require us to write words of encouragement, news, love or sympathy becomes a much broader investment in making others happy, much improving their feelings. Those who must be confined, or who have little ability to move about freely for one reason or another, will always express the happiness they feel on receiving a letter. Cards are wonderful and thoughtful; letters are exquisite pleasure, to be enjoyed over and over. Most of us are definitely out of practice when it comes to gathering the necessary items for composing letters, and it tends to sound something like this: stationery . . . do we actually still have any in the house? Do you mean the only envelopes we have are ones with preprinted lines for the return address? How tacky. And . . . do we have any stamps? These aren't the correct postage. And on and on -- of course, a sheet of notebook paper from your student's school supplies, mailed in any available envelope, will still be a welcome connection to any friend, relative or acquaintance. Later for the flowered stationery edged in gold with scented paper, not to mention the colorful wax seals now available in subtle fragrances. These are reserved for serious letter-writers, those who insist on bringing excellence to a fine point. And once you try it, this just may be you! All who receive your letters will attest to that.