I bought some watercolour pencils last week and have been having so much fun playing around with them. Last night I decided to make some of my experiments into little note cards to send to friends via snail mail. I have a pretty big collection of stationary already, but there is something extra sweet about sending something handmade.
A little over a year ago I watched The Young Victoria for the first time and fell in love with the film. I just watched it again last night and couldn't help but be struck by the romance of letter-writing. Because Victoria and Albert were living in two different countries during what I suppose would be considered their courtship, and they lived well before the age of email, facebook, and texting, they kept up their correspondence through letters. The film does a beautiful job of capturing the anticipation and joy of letters. Waiting for the envelope containing news and greetings, running to check the mail, snatching ones with your name on the front in a familiar script...it's all just so delightful.
I adore getting and sending snail mail. I know that it is probably the least efficient means of communication in this day and age. I realize that by the time whoever I am writing to actually reading the letter it is probably old news. But regardless of this there is nothing like getting a letter or card in the mail. Knowing that the person took the time to sit down and craft a note, or a novel-length epistle, to you adds a whole new layer of meaning to a letter that simply doesn't exist with email or facebook. Writing a letter requires a prolonged consideration of the other person. You can fire off an email in less than half an hour, even if it's long, but a letter takes time. You have to select paper and pen. You have to carefully arrange and phrase your anecdotes and thoughts. And then, after you have taken the time to actually write the letter, you have to remember to take it with you and find a mail box and actually send it.
There really isn't anything like a good hand-written letter.
So I lived a breath apart, a touch-typist who holds his hands above the keys slightly in the wrong place. The words coming out meaningless, garbled...I thought of writing poems this way, in code, every letter askew, so that loss would wreck the language, become the language. (Anne Michaels, Fugitive Pieces)
It's paper season. Specifically, I am currently working on a history paper about the Kirov murder. One thing I have learned: if someone has written a 700+ page book about the subject of your paper and you are someone who already tends to run over the word count, then you should probably pick a different subject. Just the research part of this paper killed me. Plus I am not comfortable writing history papers. English papers I know what I'm doing. I'm a whiz at MLA citation by now. History papers I always just feel like I am out of my depth. It doesn't help that inevitably when this time of the year rolls around my ability to form coherent sentences goes out the window. The thoughts are there in my head. In fact, in my head I am downright brilliant. Things break down when I try to communicate what is in my head. I feel like I'm speaking a foreign language, as if the words are just slightly out of my grasp. I'm forgetting things before I can write them down. The other day I was typing and wasn't looking at the screen and then when I looked up all there was was incoherent garble. It seemed like such a perfect embodiment of the way I have been feeling while trying to write. I immediately thought of this quote from Fugitive Pieces. So perfect. At least if I can't express things there are brilliant authors who can do it for me.
Dear Heart and Head,
If you two could agree on something, I would really appreciate it.
- B
