Hello there
I was recently surfing blogs and came across an entry bemoaning the loss of Love Letters. Not the fast and instanteous emails or the truncated texts or even the witty tweets ( I have been disciplining myself to write poetry in 140 characters – it is such a good discipline for writers!)
BUT real on paper, written with the pen in your hand and sent via snail mail, Love Letters.
Having lived in an age when Love Letters were only sent via snail mail I have to say I am rather partial to the Love Letter myself.
So why is that?
1) It’s the amount of effort is shows. He cares enough to write me a letter – this is really something especially if your lover is far away and very busy with their own life.
2) It is the unexpectedness of it’s arrival – so different from your bills and circulars or the scrawly spidery hand of your great aunt telling you all about people you don’t know from her past and complaining about the cost of coffee.
3) It is the aroma -yes a love letter has a special aroma, a vibration that communicates from the way he boldly writes your name and address to the size and colour of the envelope he uses.
4) It is the emotions it arouses in you. You open it, heart a-flutter, eagerly wanting to read it’s contents yet unwilling to spoil the envelope.
I have to say here that all love letters I have opened with a letter opener, neatly so as not to tear them, but from a family member or bill- I merely flip the envelope open with my thumb – tearing the envelope in my haste and disregard.
5) The way your eyes devour the words, as though you have been starved in some prison somewhere and every word is your nourishment. The first time you read it so quickly you have barely time to digest it and it requires 2 -3 readings before you can say you understand what has been written.
6) Having been nourished and starvation abated it is now time to savour – this is when you read it again, you notice the penmenship, the date, how the words fit on the page, and think about what he might have been thinking when he wrote it to you, was he in a hurry or did he take his time finding exactly the right words to say to you? Was he poetic? Sensual? Sexually explicit? Was he romantic? This is the time when you blush and grin in delight , hugging the letter to you.
7) Now it is time for you to reply. This could be the same day or many days later, depending on how long it has taken you to get to this step and how in love with your lover you are. This is when you re-read the letter and answer in reply to his questions or innuendos, his passion and his caring. If you feel you are in the flow the letter gets written in your best handwriting and with a quick re-read is ready to be sealed with a kiss and sent to the post box.
If it is more difficult or you have troubles clearly expressing yourself it may take longer – and you could find so many scribbled out bits and add -ins that you decide to re-write it so that he will be able to read it when it arrives.
You stop and imagine him reading your letter, a smile playing his lips as he registers what you are saying and wish he were here that you could speak with him directly.
And now you wait for his next new Love Letter and in this time you re-read his last one until you know it by heart. Until you can hear him speaking the lines he has written. Until the creases of the letter are fragile with the folding over and over and the words have begun to fade with the reading as though you are reading the ink off the page and that at some time (sooner than you would like) the letter will have disintegrated and blown away with the dust. So you read it again, more avariciously in the hope the words will become etched in your heart.
9) And you wait and still no letter. You wonder if you have offended by what you have written? Has he cooled in his passion for you? Is it already over before it has really begun? Doubt settles like a misty grey overcoat and now you look at the box of letters and watch warily, willing yourself to have more will power to resist torturing yourself with them if they may not be true.
10) And today glorious day – his letter has arrived and you are all smiles, over the moon with happiness and delight. You love is well, he is well and you are happy at last.
So why do we do all of that to ourselves you may ask?
Because the drama and experience of living and loving so close to the edge with our emotions is what receiving Love Letters is all about!
For some this rollercoaster of emotions is too much to bear in which case I would suggest – leave it alone – BUT if there is any small part of you that feels the need for a love that is lived on the edge, that is developed over time and that gives you a chance to express things you would not say face to face, then I would say
Go for it!
It’s the kind of experience of love that you will never forget.
One you can carry with you into your old age to reminisce over when you are as old as your great aunt!
Why if you are really sentimental, you will have kept all those letters still and be ready to read them again and smile and remember as though it were only yesterday when the Love Letter arrived.
Until next time
May you receive and write many love letters…
Melody
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