The extinction of the pen pal

          I'm letter writing this year. Prolifically. That's the goal. I just wrote a three page letter to a good friend. It's a good start. I want to recognize my friends' handwriting (handwriting - that's another lost art). Stamps! Envelopes, and paper. Ink. Those envelopes - anything goes. Ticket stubs. Feathers. An interesting magazine clipping. It can be like a shadowbox in an envelope.

          It's intimate, you know? In a way that email isn't. Someone took the time to write out their thoughts, the pen across the paper, and then you read it, hands on the same paper, eyes on the same lines. There's physical contact and connection that's lacking in electronic media. I mean, I'm all for emails and facebook - they're fast and convenient. But they're a little bit sterile, a little clinical.

          Despite all the readings I have to do this semester (several essays and a novel a week), I want to take time to write letters. Long, indulgent, quirky letters; start long, indulgent correspondences. I don't know. I just have this romantic notion of gathering letters in a cardboard photo box, of going through them years later.

          Maybe this isn't fair. Emails have just as much of a chance to be vehicles of correspondence as letters. A good friend of mine showed up at school yesterday - he's going to Asia this term (he left today actually) but he dropped by to say hello. It was really good to see him. While I was overseas last semester, we kept up a series of emails - actually thoughtful, actually provoking, actually silly and real. He's one of the two people with whom I've had real electronic correspondence. While he was here, we talked briefly about the art of emails, and how rare it is for someone to understand that emails should be letters, not memos.

          Mailboxes will always be more exciting than inboxes.