Another Day in the Country
Sending a line
© Another Day in the Country
Perhaps you remember my talking about children in art class this past spring at Centre Elementary. They were looking at art created by the U.S. Postal Service and attempting to enlarge and paint stamps as an art project.
I put my address and real stamps on a whole bunch of envelopes as part of a wall display. A sign encouraged anyone to take one of the already stamped envelopes or postcards and send them to me during summer break.
The self-addressed envelopes were all gone at the end of the show. I had high hopes.
Guess how many I received?
One!
It was from an adult who lived in Abilene, just happened to be attending the art show, took a postcard home, and during the summer sent it to me, reminding me of the joy of seeing the artwork the children had created.
I was thrilled — beyond thrilled: ecstatic!
The excitement happened to me again just a few days ago when I got another letter — in an actual envelope — from my grandson, who is now in college in Southern California.
What is beyond ecstatic? Euphoric?
I say “another” because this is now the second letter I’ve received from him from college — not that we don’t communicate otherwise. We text back and forth, but those aren’t letters!
In the first letter he sent, you could tell that this college guy was not used to writing letters.
There was a certain stiff formality about it all, as if he’d read style suggestions in a letter-writing manual and was trying to tick all the boxes to get it right.
At the end, he signed off, “Sincerely, Dagfinnr,” and I was chuckling.
“This is your grandmother you are writing to, Sweet Pea.”
That’s okay, I said to myself. He’s trying. He’ll get the hang of it eventually.
This second letter was longer, contained more news, and filled a page.
I’ve been trying to encourage this literary, letter-writing side of him for years, but written missives in the archives of keepsakes are few and far between. This child was born into a computer-loving society where writing by hand was becoming extinct.
This morning, I went down to the post office to mail another bundle of my favorite magazines to him — reading material.
It took him a while to figure out where to get his mail and where to send it from once he landed in a dormitory.
He sent us a picture of packages and envelopes from various relatives when he finally found out where things were delivered — obviously, not to his room.
The envelope I just sent contained a copy of the New Yorker, New Science, and The Week, all with good articles I thought he’d enjoy.
In his last letter, he wrote comments about an article in New Science and asked my opinion on the subject.
I love it when he asks my opinion — very diplomatic of this young chap.
As you can imagine, there are not many letter writers in my friendship circle. Our friend Jane is good at sending thank-you notes, so we get letters from her on occasion. Our cousin Carol is great at sending cards for every birthday and holiday on the calendar. However, there are only three people aside from my novice letter-writing grandson who write letters to me.
One is my cousin Keith. Every once in a while I get a handwritten letter from him, and I probably talk about it in this column when it happens.
We share a love of books. Sometimes a book he has read comes with the letter, and I get to read it, too.
Another is my friend Jimmy, who has been incarcerated for most of his life. We are still waiting for news of his reprieve after his case was reviewed; but there’s not a lot of good news in a prison cell, so his missives are brief.
Then there’s my most prolific letter-writing artist friend living in Mississippi, who writes letters to me. He signs his letters, “Old Dawg, Lifetime Companion,” and through the years, I’ve enjoyed — no, it’s beyond enjoyed — cherished the letters he sends.
He has a big family, and his letters always include some tidbit about each of his kids, some of whom I’ve known since they were in grade school and a couple of whom I’ve never even met.
These days, as we grow older, the letters grow shorter, the space between the lines bigger, the lapses of time longer, and the handwriting harder to read, but there is still a grin that pulls up the corners of my mouth when I see his familiar handwriting on an envelope in my mailbox.
The last letter I got, a couple of months ago, had his name on the return but the handwriting was unfamiliar. It startled me. Had something happened? I tore open the envelope.
“It’s arthritis,” my artist friend wrote. “The hands don’t work as well, but the wife and I are still working with clay on occasion, building the Town Game.”
They are now living in a house owned by his oldest son. At his son’s request, they are building a miniature medieval village around a pond. The buildings are made of clay, stones, and cement, like the one he’d built for his kids in their backyard when they were children.
“It’s my last art project,” he says.
So, my friends, here is this week’s challenge: Write a letter to someone — anyone. Don’t send a card. Write something you’ve done — some memory, something from your heart. Write about ideas you’ve shared — something you’ve seen and how you’ve enjoyed spending another day in the country.