Email

Once upon a time people wrote letters, and lots of them-- to parents, relatives, friends, lovers. Now the typical home receives a personal letter about every seven weeks, according to the annual survey done by the post office. This of course is driven by the Internet as the preferred method of communication.

The "art" of letter writing was once taught in schools, and correspondence was the most important medium of communication in society.  Not just personal news, but ideas and culture. Letters were shared and read aloud.  And saved. This is a great loss to what future generations will know about us. (Maybe.)  And poor historians won't have the sensory experience and pleasure of dealing with old documents. Spoken like a librarian.

When Amanda was in the Peace Corps, we wrote her every week and she sent us fascinating, long letters about Grenada.  I saved all of these for Nova and Maya, and somewhere in the dusty recess of a closet there are bundles of my personal letters from the 1970's-- a time of passionate young angst!  Ha! Also some rather embarrassing handwritten diaries and poetry journals.

After keeping the stuff all this time, I'll leave it to others to throw out.  But there is an intimacy when we go to the attic to read grandma's dusty letters. Scrolling through "sent" email files could never replace it.

Still, I love email because it's the most thoughtful, letter-like medium left for sharing news.  I always feel compelled to reply to text messages immediately (why is that?) but after dinner I often think, "Oh yes, I need to sit down and answer some emails now."  Kind of like the old days.