Lake Effect
Letters
If your loved one wrote to you from a far away country, would you even recognise their handwriting? Would you know what colour ink they would use, or if they favour ballpoint or fibre tip? Do they even write at all or is it all dictated into an app, shared in photos on Instagram and Facebook.
We are so connected in so many ways. We can keep in touch, speak face to face though we are half a world away from each other. He is in Minneapolis this month, but he can sing to me — though unlikely because he’s not the one who sings. I can share a sunset or a thunderstorm.
We are so connected and it is marvellous, yet I long for a letter in my hands. Something that I can touch and reread and trace the pressure of the ink with my fingertips. Something tainted with the smells of thousands of miles of travel, rubbing up against other letters written to other lovers — though they are more likely to be tax demands than romantic poems, written by candlelight.
I love that we can speak every day, that I know his hotel room has brown curtains, and that he knows that the ironing board is still not put away. Yet I long for a letter that I can hold in my hands, and reread when this moment of separation is an old faded memory.
We are so connected in the here and the now, but what will happen to our memories in the future?
Blog photograph copyrighted to the photographer and used with permission by utata.org. All photographs used on utata.org are stored on flickr.com and are obtained via the flickr API. Text is copyrighted to the author, Debra Broughton and is used with permission by utata.org. Please see Show and Share Your Work
