Did You Get My Last _____?

Did you get my last letter. I guess it was a bit long for email. I miss the letters I used to get and their prompting the letters I used to write. Somehow email shortens everything and hides it away. When I don’t get letters I don’t get the inward mobility of soul. In fact the soul can only be revealed in personal penning. At least in my stationary world it’s the only evidence I get of a soul. That personal writing to me, handwritten or typed, immediately opens up a presence which contains more than itself. That direct focused involvement, with me involved, can only be a joy, a renewing, an expansion of his or her intellect with mine, the ongoing revelation and opening of self that can even be more personal than sitting next to each other and talking.

Talking is like sports. You can do it walking, or even running as well as sitting or standing. It’s delicious in its own right. It’s batting the ball back and forth, or tossing the ball. It can be accumulative and lead to a win but usually not, it’s a tied game and everyone goes home satisfied, unlike real sports.

But in a letter written and sent in the US mail there’s not banter, there’s an expression of depth. True you can get involved with writing writing but you will come back to the focus on who you are addressing. The immediacy of now commands the tone. There’s a filling in of spaces of shared friendship. An amplification of a relationship possible in a letter. The friendly letter. The expression of where the mind has been and where it is, what reading, what books, what findings, what reflections, what pains what relationships, what anguish what loves, what travels what goings on, what elements of life. It’s the best way to keep alive a friendship when there’s distance. It defies distance and renews everything again. Or that’s what I’ve experienced and that’s been a major component of my life.

But time goes by and technological hazards reveal themselves in the frenzy of change. The instant secretive aspect of the computer, the chip in phone and tablet, rushes us to complete things quickly and get on with other things. So I guess I let the old idea of letter invade the digital premises of email and let myself go a bit as if I was writing a letter. I went on more than the usual email snippet limit. So if you got my last email I’d like to hear back from you, however short. That’s the demand of the technology it seems, leaving me at least with the nostalgia of the former days of writing and sending, waiting and receiving, and after awhile, sending back in the mail sincerely or best wishes or abrazos or with love, Larry.

Goodell / Placitas, New Mexico /19Sep2015