Snail Mail

Yesterday, I received a letter in the post. It was sitting in the mail box, just waiting to be received! I took it out, noticing the foreign postage stamps with expectation. The post mark was 16th August - not bad for the much-maligned postal service! I brought it inside and sat down to examine it. I turned it around to see the sender's address - old friends from Paris. It's not often that I get snail mail that does not have an envelope with a window, and I intended to savour this one. 

Slowly I slit the envelope and removed the A4 page - writing on both sides! Our friends in Paris have resisted all attempts to "globalise" and jump onto the technology highway. Sometimes this can be frustrating as we could be in much more regular contact if they were at least using the email address that they do have. But what a pleasure to enjoy the dying art of letter writing! I can imagine them sitting down to write the letter - and usually all four family members write a few lines - putting it into the envelope once they are satisfied that they have said all they want, and then going out to post it. All that time they are thinking about us and sending us positive thoughts!

They were replying to a letter I wrote a while ago (I had to remind myself about the contents - but even that was a pleasure as I had sent them a picture of my son with Madiba and could replay that event in my mind). They said were going to have the picture framed and displayed for all to see. Now if I had sent that via e-mail, they would probably not have printed it out!

Sometimes life is so fast and everything is so accessible that we forget to appreciate the small events and the small gestures that make life so meaningful. So, take a minute - write a letter to someone - it doesn't have to say much, except that you are thinking of them.