Pen & Paper

Do you have things you collect? Something that if your spouse/significant other/parents tried to throw away would turn into a huge battle? I do. And Steve knows better than to do anything with them. Don’t touch, move to somewhere I can’t find them, or even dare to put them in a place where they could potentially be damaged. No, it’s not my magazine collection. Which I do have an unnatural obsession with magazines and a hard time parting with them. I love the freshness of them: the pictures, articles, and even the ads (I know, it’s a sickness). My favorite collection is all the letters and cards I have received over the years. If you’ve sent me a birth announcement, Christmas card, birthday card, random note, whatever, there is a strong chance that I still have it. I have shoe boxes full of cards. I’m not quite sure when this love of cards and letters began, but I have at least 20 years of them. Every once in a while I will go through a box and read all the cards, trying to remember when I received them. This past weekend was one of those times. I was going through a drawer and found a letter I received from my “Non” (mom’s mom). She sent it to me on one of my birthdays. It is a handwritten, three page letter with the traditional birthday wishes and a funny story to add. (One of these days I will post some of Non’s letters. She had a beautiful handwriting that people don’t use anymore and a whit that is hard to match.) This particular letter is extra-special to me… it is one of the last letters I received from her. The letter is still in the envelope she hand addresses – no return address labels for her. And inside the letter are the crisp bills she sent for my birthday – $34 I think. It’s not a fancy card. Not written on cute paper. Just three pages, handwritten on classic white stationary, with wishes for a great year and love from my Non. I miss my Non terribly, but I have something I can hold on to that she penned, just for me. I am a huge fan of electronic media – email, text, Facebook, Twitter, blogs – I’ve got them all. But there is nothing like a handwritten note. I think today I’ll take some time to write a few notes… who knows, maybe it will end up in someone’s shoe box.