The Semi-Lost Art of Letter Writing as a Means of Healing Self and Others Through Connection
Or, this is my letter to you ...
I used to write SO many letters. I got my first pen pal when I was still in elementary school. I continued to gather pen pals from around the world. I hit a peak of over 100 of them in my early twenties. Now, to be honest, that was too many. By then the deep sense of really understanding each other was lost as I attempted to keep up. But during my high school years and shortly thereafter, I had a steady ongoing pen pal relationship with 25-40 people. I would come home and open the mailbox and feel daily joy. I would read those letters and really get a sense of who was writing and what their hearts were saying. Then I would sit down with a pen and paper and - in scrawl that changed regularly as I spent my teen years working out "who I was" - I would write about my own life. I'd share the little and the big, the thoughts and the feelings. I would decorate those letters (anyone remember mail art?) and seal them and send them off. And depending on where the recipient lived, it would be days or weeks or in rare cases months before the person even read what I'd written. Then in their time, they'd write back. And over the course of years, I learned about the world. I learned about places I'd never been, lives I'd never experienced, people who thought the same and differently as me.
People say that letter writing is a lost art, and there is truth in that, although I'll argue that it's only semi-lost since I do know a decent number of people who still write letters, or at least cards, by hand. But certainly some of us could do more of this, specifically setting aside time to write letters as a means to improve our own mental health and our connections with our communities. Letter writing is one of those creative acts that can be healing for both the giver and the recipient.
Community means a lot of different things. But basically, we are all human and we need to feel connected to other humans. It's not just that we need humans around us. Many of us have been in a crowd and felt entirely alone. And social anxiety is a real thing. It's that we need humans - whether many or just a couple close ones - who see us, know us, hold our hands and our hearts, really connect with us.
Slight aside: If you haven't read Johann Hari's book Lost Connections in which he argues that a sense of disconnection to others is a major cause of widespread depression, I highly recommend it. There's a related TED talk he did if you prefer that medium.
There are many, many, many aspects to mental health both individually and collectively. Community or this deep sense of feeling connected to others in a meaningful way is one important part. We need to feel that we matter - not because of what we produce or create or show off or "do" but just because we are. We need to feel that who we are as individuals matters to someone in the world. Without this feeling, it's very, very hard to hang on to strong mental health through the harder days and challenges of life.
So, back to letter writing. Letter writing is a creative art form. I actually used to love to read books as a child that were collections of letters or diary entries. Now I'm more into the straightforward memoir. However, I've definitely read some books with at least excerpts of letters recently. In particular, I read letters when I research art history as it applies to mental health. Because prior to the twenty-first century, and definitely prior to the twentieth century, letters were the primary form of communication from people not living in the same city. So a lot of how we know about the mental state of artists such as Van Gogh, for example, is through their letters to their family and friends. The hours and hours they spent writing those letters ... it's a creative art form all on its own but it's also a way to form a deep and meaningful sense of connection over time.
So, I got all of those pen pals and in my late teens spent hours and hours of my daily life reading and writing letters. Later on I met some of those people in real life. And a few of them I have loose Facebook relationships with today. But whether or not that happened, they formed a critical foundation of support for me during the time when I was writing those letters. Because the act of sitting down with a single person in mind and creating something from my heart and mind meant exactly for them, and them receiving it and taking the time to do the same, was a deep, deep thing. It's indescribable.
Obviously, things are different in the 21st century. And that's neither bad nor good. Just different. There are a lot of wonderful things about the instant communication that we have today with a global audience. I have groups of friends that I've only ever know through text and we message daily or weekly and they have provided deep, true, honest, authentic friendship to me. It's not impossible. But it's also not the same as the creative act of really sitting down, pen to paper, to write that one letter to that one person.
I'm not as good at letter-writing as I used to be. I tried to get back into it over the last few years with a few friends and for whatever reason it never stuck. But I do send postcards and short cards out quite a few times per year. And I'm always delighted when I get one back. And although it's a shorter version of the letter, I try to make it personal and include quotes or whatever make me think of that individual person. I think of each of these cards, these letters, these mailed packages as a thread that I create and it stretches out to the people who receive it. Then they send their handwritten messages to me and to others and those are more threads. And all around the world are these threads. And maybe they are tenuous but we can strengthen them by giving them attention.
I'm not saying that I'm going to sit down and write a letter to a loved one every day. That's not my reality right now. But I want to give more attention to the times when I can and do. I want to make sure that when I see on social media that someone has lost a pet, I don't just hit the "heart hug" emoji or say "I'm so sorry" but remember to sit down and at least write a card. I want to create small things - collages or notes or crocheted items - with a specific person in mind and send it to that person. Maybe it will help them feel loved, seen, valued, connected, to know that someone was thinking of them. Maybe it will help them in grief or pain or struggle ... or make a smile brighter on an already good day. Or maybe not. Because I can't control that outcome. Some people don't like reading mail. But what it can definitely do is allow me to gain the mental health benefits of knowing that I'm trying to connect to my community the best way that I know how. The act of sitting down, with intentionality, and writing a letter and thinking of the recipient ... it all helps to remind me that we are not fingers hitting buttons ... we are humans with hearts and souls and spending our time stirring those for the purpose of connecting with others is HUGE for our own individual and collective mental health.
As I craft these Substack posts, I've often thought of them as letters to each of you. I know it's not the same as a handwritten individual letter to one person from one person. I'm not trying to say it is. But I want you to know that I do hold each of you in mind for a moment before I wrap up the post. Sometimes I even look at my subscriber list and think about who each person is and try to imagine sending you love and light and kindness and healing and joy and connection. I don't know if it comes through, but I try. Whatever you do or don't accomplish today, you're amazing, exactly as you are. This is my letter to you.
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Friend's mom has a stack of letters she received over 50 years ago when she first arrived in Canada in her early twenties. Every week without fail, she exchanged letters with her mom back home in England. 'We talked about everything in those letters,' she said emotionally. 'It took more than a week for them to arrive in Canada, but it never felt that long.' When she talks about those letters, it's heartwarming. Her face lights up, her eyes sparkle. I don't think emails could ever bring the same warmth as handwritten ones.
I used to write and receive letters from my mom when i was in college and it was magical! Opening up my little mail box and actually having something in there could change the course of my day in an instant! So here’s to more letters. it does make a difference, for the writer and the reader! Thank you for this post!