Island Soul City Dreams

I Got Mail – A Handwritten Letter!

Dear Aunty: A handwritten letter from my nephew, Nicholai.

As I do must days, as usual, I got mail today. But it wasn’t the usual mail. Okay, maybe my Verizon mobile bill was part of the usual mail, as was the alumni correspondence from grad school, but the “via air mail” envelope with a postage stamp from Barbados – that was definitely unusual. Breaking the seal, I opened far more sunshine than beautiful Barbados boasts in its 365-day-a-year of sea and sun. I opened a handwritten letter from Nicholai, my 10 year-old nephew. The first thing that grabbed my attention was his impeccable penmanship. From the carefully poised address and date in the upper right corner, to his salutation, “Dear Aunty,” to his endearing sentiments and descriptive storytelling, I marveled at Nicholai’s expertise with ink. But what impressed me most was the clarity with which he expressed his feelings and his command of the English language: grammar, syntax, punctuation etc. In this digital era where crafting thoughts can now be encapsulated in tweets of 140 characters via a computer, tablet or mobile device, these skills exhibited by Nicholai and in particular, the handwritten letter are almost seen as a dying art. Read more…