The art of letter writing.

On Saturday I found myself feeling a little lonely.  The day was dreary, the rain constant, and all of my little housekeeping jobs had been tackled, so I called my parents to see if they had plans for the night.  They so often do...I suspect that all socializing they must have put off during their earlier life due to things like raising a family and working is taken up again in spades come retirement.  Their calendar is packed with the obligatory doctors appointments, but also a non-stop stream of lunch and dinner dates, concerts and book readings, yoga classes, parties, etc.  It's nice.  I'm happy for them, but in this instance I was happy for me, as they had no evening plans and I could come home and play daughter and have supper with them and play cards, watch a movie, and generally just be adored and adore my parents. (which honestly, I do.)

Anyway, they told me about a recent dinner with an ex-student of my father's who has become a friend.  They both just love her...she was my father's favorite student, and the way she came to him was no small feat indeed.  At nearly fifty years old now, she had and gave up a son at the age of 17.  Shortly thereafter she took care of her parents, who were ill, until their deaths.  Somewhere during this time she became completely agoraphobic, and did not leave her home for 23 years, save to venture into the gardens around her yard.  She went on to graduate from Smith College.  She, by all rights, should be published...her writing is that good.  And how would I know?  From her letter writing.  She writes in almost journal form to my parents...starting a letter early in one month and going into the next...each segment as beautifully written as any short stories or essays I've ever written.  As my father read to me, I could almost smell the candy like aromas of the confectionery dream garden she's been planting in her head over the years....her writing as Emily Dickinsonian as her previous life.  She reads and writes a lot.  Her descriptiveness in one vignette about a woman, comparing her to a church, is so beautiful that even as my father reads it, he weeps...as do I...as do we all, because it's pure and true and lovely.

I cannot remember the time I have last received a letter in the mail.
I suspect it was during the winter months when my parents were in Florida, as they both still do write letters.
They shamed me into writing them back.
I believe that was the last letter I wrote...harried and passionate, written in a fit of frustration with them for making such a big deal about a letter.

Now I know why.
Writing is so personal.
Letters are important.
I need to write more.
I WANT to write more.
I will write.