The Saddest Letter...EVER!

The Saddest Letter ...EVER!

I found this letter on the internet...written by "Monica" probably about 7 years ago.  I still can't read it , uneffected.   Monica, where ever you are...I would write you!  

My Dear Reader,

Today I mourned the death of letter writing.

It came on suddenly, the realization of death and the mourning  came zinging through the overcrowded brush of my hiking  trail like a lightening rod.  I have not received a handwritten letter in more than a year.  The thought literally stopped me in my tracks and took my breath away.

It was one thing when letter writing seeemed to me a romantic and rare art form.  It was so genteel and elegant (truthfully, it still is).  To this day, practically nothing excites me more than a pen gliding across  a piece of beautiful blank stationery with  thoughts and sentiments spun out in a lovely prose, like a morning glory vine that swirls across the media around it until, in a moment of early light ,blooms into a breathtaking array of color and scent.

But with the realization that I'm the only one writing letters, letter writing all the sudden seems so desolate, like a desert after a torrential rain--still barren because,no matter how thirsty the earth, the sun has baked it so hard it cannot absorb the water.

I am thirsty for letters.  I have probably written more than 100 letters in the past two years, but have received less than a dozen in return...and none in the past year alone.

I know because I counted them.  I keep them.

It's part of their charm, you know.  Most people keep letters.  Did you know , for instance, that much of our history comes  from information in letters?  Galileo outlined his discovery  of planets  and the Earth's rotation around the sun in letters to Belisario Vinta.  Our founding fathers practically documented the entire revolution in letters to colleagues, and in magnificent form more often to their wives.  The Wright brothers ironed out ideas about  flying machines through letters with engineers at the Smithsonian.

What if someone were to write history based on the written mail people receive nowadays?  I don't know about you, but all I ever receive are laser-jetted addresses peeking our of plastic window envelopes in my mailbox.  And , inside, the content shares no thought nor sentiment.  Just  sales pitches or payment reminders.

It's just not the same.  It's just not the thing people keep for prosperity.    It's just not the thing people treasure.  

I used to say I wanted to be a pirate.  Now you know my treasure.  As a muse, I used to want my medium to be music.  But I know it is prose, specifially the handwritten letter kind.

Francis Bacon wrote that "letters, sucn as written by wise men, are , of all the words of men, the best."

I believe that's true...

...As a good pirate, my pride flares up and it says it's time to quit sending letters.  I don'ty want to keep giving pieces of my thoughts and sentiments to people who don't value it, to people who may not value it.  Quite frankly, I'm too valuable.  And I don't believe in charity.

As a muse, I know I must continue to write.

I am faithfully true,

Monica