Dear _____,
The other morning when I woke up for the usual mid sleep bathroom trip, I knew I would not be able to fall back asleep right away. Usually, that is my cue to open whatever book I am reading or to meditate for awhile, but this time I decided to write a letter.
I had received an email a couple days previously from a longtime friend outlining a distressing crisis in her life. While I had responded via email right away, I told her I wanted to sit with what she had told me, and I would write her a letter soon. What to say had been percolating in my head and heart for several days.
In the quiet of darkness, I sat at my lady's writing desk in the living room and the words flowed easily and, I hope, warmly and perhaps even wisely. How satisfying it felt to choose from my stash of notecards and stationary and then to move my fountain pen across the page. Finally, with the lick of the envelope and the completion of her address, I was ready to return to bed, feeling connected to my friend and confident she will feel my compassion and support.
A Letter Stash
Little by little my husband has been emptying the storage unit where we stored so much stuff while our house in Madison was for sale. One of the last deliveries was a HUGE bin loaded with letters I have received over a ten year period. Inside were weekly letters from my father who was very upset when we moved to Ohio, and I had suggested to him that he write to us every Sunday evening just as he had written to his mother for many, many years before her death. Many of those letters were bundled inside that almost casket-sized bin. Other bundles were from two friends who wrote weekly. One of them not only wrote big chunky letters, but decorated both cards and envelopes with stickers and collages of cut out magazine pictures. Works of playful art. So much life documented and narrated. So much expression. So many words. Such giving in those envelopes.
My challenge was what to do with those letters. I recognized if I decided to reread them all, I would be living with that bin for a very long time. I knew it was time to let them go. I went through the ribboned bundles, deciding only to check for photos or anything else that should not be lost. Occasionally, I read a letter or several paragraphs, and memories of time and place and spiritual growth would wave in front of me, but for the most part I said good-bye and thank you and I love you and even forgive me for not revisiting each offering. They are not all gone, for over the years I slipped an occasional letter or copied a key passage of a letter into a journal.
Letter-writing versus Emailing
I ended this process with a desire to write more letters once again, and I intend to do that. A couple years ago my New Year's intention was to write a letter every day; an intention I fulfilled, but did not maintain into the next year, even though it had become a spiritual practice that deepened my awareness of the movement of God in my life and strengthened my connection to many relationships, both casual and intimate. I recognize, however, that even though I love writing letters, most of my correspondence will remain emails.
Is it possible to bring some of the letter writing mind set to more of my emails?
I read with interest Mason Currey's thought about emails in an essay in the New York Times on November 9, 2013. http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/11/09/for-the-week-of-1110-the-death-of-letter-writing/
Spend as little time as possible reading and replying
to emails and dash them off with as much haste, and
as little care to spelling and punctuation, as you can
bear. In other words, don't think of them as letters at
all--think of them as telegrams and remember that
you are paying for every word.
I get what he's saying and think this approach is worth following in many cases, but I also think sometimes, often in fact, writing an email can also be a form of spiritual practice. As I enter the name of the recipient, why not take a brief moment to close my eyes and bring that person into my heart. Before beginning the body of my email, can I pause and open my heart to what is waiting to be expressed whether it is to offer support or comfort or to rejoice or celebrate or simply to connect? Instead of automatically push the "send" button, why not reread that email as if your recipient is reading it--become that person. Imagine the response. Is this any more or less than what we want to experience when we are face to face?
Handwriting a letter slows me down, makes me more aware of the person in my life and myself in the person's life, and I hope to return to that practice more frequently, but I think I hope I can bring that same consciousness to the screen as well.
An Invitation
What role does letter writing have in your life? Who would benefit from receiving a letter from you? What about your emailing practice? How does that need to be modified or enhanced? I would love to know.
I'm itchy to write.
Yesterday I answered a multitude of emails, wrote several pages in my journal about centering prayer, composed my Letter of the Day, and started three different posts for this blog. False starts.
What's the problem? Obviously, I am writing, but it's not enough, I think. I'm besieged with ideas. I have a small stack of little pieces of paper with hastily scratched ideas: "taking on what's hard for me," "Meditations For and By an Introvert," "Growing my World as I Grow Older." Ideas galore, but none have gelled -- yet. Instead of feeling blocked, I feel noisy, jumbled, piled up to the brim with ideas, thoughts to pursue and explore. I feel exuberant with words. Not a bad problem to have, I tell myself. Better than being itchy to write and having nothing to write about or better than not wanting to ever write anything again.
When I taught classes on journal writing, I would say, "The more you write, the more you find to write about, and the more you find to write about, the more you want to write." That still feels true. For years I have heard the advice if you want to be a writer, write every day, but I always interpreted that as writing seriously every day and seriously meant working on a project headed towards publication. A good day was one in which I worked on my essays on grief and loss or another writing project.
Well, my New Year's intention to write a letter every day is changing my view of myself as a writer. I AM writing every day. I AM a writer because I write, and in fact, I am writing every day. My writing is serious because I think about my audience. I open and reach into my heart and pray I will find clear and loving words that will speak to my recipient. I sit at my Lady's Writing Desk and light a candle and select stationery or note cards, and remove the cover of my fountain pen, and I write.
More and more I realize that what supports this desire to write and the actual practice of writing is silence. I need to sit in silence more and to actually silence the words. I receive a newsletter from a nonprofit group called Friends of Silence (www.friendsofsilence.net) and quoting from T.S. Eliot's poem, "Ash Wednesday," they ask, "Is there enough Silence for the Word to be heard?" It is in the moments of centering prayer that I am able to release the jumble and the noise. In the silence I am somehow reminded that the act of writing itself, whatever the content or the forum, is an expression of my essence. Writing is how I connect with the Divine and how the Divine connects with me.
Here it is the middle of January. Already. I have been writing about intentions, and yet, I don't seem to have any. Sure, I want to write more and eat less. Exercise more and eat less. I want to disperse more possessions and acquire less, (and eat less!) but these not unfamiliar notions are vague and uninspiring at best.
I am impressed by my friend who last year set her intention to walk an hour every day, and I am intrigued by the writer Susan Hill who decided to read for one whole year only books she already owned. (Howard's End is on the Landing, A Year of Reading from Home by Susan Hill). Or how impressive is Nina Sankovitch who read an entire book every single day and discovered a way to cope with and grow through grief and loss (Tolstoy and the Purple Chair, My Year of Magical Reading). And then there is the memorable and entertaining decision to cook every recipe in Julia Child's iconic French cookbook in one year, which resulted in a bestselling memoir and a movie starring Meryl Streep no less. Finally, yesterday I read about a Madison woman who was preparing to turn 60 last year and set 60 goals for herself, including climbing 60,000 feet, practicing the piano for 60 minutes for 60 days, reading 6,000 pages, identifying 60 birds in Costa Rica and doing 60 push-ups at one time. I am almost grateful I am past 60 and not tempted to follow her example, but 65 looms!
On the surface some of these intentions seem gimmicky, and yet, underneath there seems to be a desire for transformation. Were these women of intention aware of the potential for inner growth that could result by meeting the challenges of one's intentions? And just what did they learn and how did they change by keeping their intentions? And how did they arrive at their specific intentions?
I can feel an idea forming; an idea that has its origin in several seemingly unrelated circumstances. Bear with me.
#1 In December I walked a labyrinth, and one of the messages I received as I stood in the sacred center space was, "Do what expresses your essence." I also heard "Do and Be who you are." I was so struck by the word "do," for this last decade I think I have been focused on "being" and what that means. But twice I heard the word "DO." No direction about what to do was offered, of course.
#2 This summer a woman I know, but not well, was struck with a dreadful cancer and was in the hospital for quite some time. I knew I wanted to DO something, but I was unsure of what that should be, could be. I decided after some time for discernment to write to her every day while she was in the hospital. I continue to write to her occasionally even now. As I wrote to her during those weeks, I felt I was doing one good thing. I was offering a measure of reflection, a daily meditation. I was extending wishes for healing. I was opening to connection. For at least those moments every day I held her in my heart.
#3 I have a wonderful antique desk, my Lady's Writing Desk, which has been the setting, the container for hours and hours of writing over the years. Journals and essays and teaching plans and yes, letters. Lots and lots of letters. Its location in this house, however, has never felt quite right to me. When I did sit there, I felt shoved in a corner, boxed in, and my energy felt blocked. And guess what? I have written few letters since living here; something I had always enjoyed in the past. Well, dear reader, I moved my Lady's Writing Desk, and the pleasure of writing letters, the desire to write on paper, instead of a screen, has returned.
Therefore, here is my intention for this year: I will write a letter every day. I don't have this all figured out yet, but I know this is something I can DO and need to DO and that DOING it is an expression of my essence. I know deep in my heart that when we live our essence the Sacred, the Divine, is more visible and is felt and known more.
I will start today. Day #1 of my intention. Letter #1.
