Stranger: Why do people not write to each other any more? Do they not have many things to say to each other? Are brief and frequent 140 characters or less enough? I don't know. I don't think so. Even if I don't have something specific to say, why should I not write to you at length? So handwritten letters have disappeared, and I miss them. Have emails disappeared too? Tell me it isn't so. Tell me people write, V, because I seem to be surrounded by instant messages. And I like my messages long and infrequent. I like to have expectations from paragraphs and then be let down, only to be taken somewhere else entirely. I want to return to knowing what it feels like to put someone else inside your head and have them whisper a story to your ears. I want to feel it tickle when people whisper. Don't you love that feeling?
But then, why am I writing to you? Is this the equivalent of invading your personal space with things that may not directly concern you? Do you write to people, V? Do you write them letters and stories in ink, or do you scribe them in your head? Do you share your secrets with people? Tell me one, perhaps; and then go the rest of your life wondering if I kept your secret, or if there is now someone completely separate from anything to do with you who now knows your deepest, darkest secrets. Come to think of it, isn't that stranger me? What's your secret, S?
People do write, or at least try to, I thought, still, a while ago.
ReplyDeleteWith the spirit thus, I wrote to a girl. A perfect handwritten letter. A pure intellectual letter. A complete platonic, unconcerned with love, letter. The reply?
I will write to you after my exams, she said. And that is when I stopped expecting a reply.
Being born after the decline of the celebrated letter writing, we are supposed to be faster. We are supposed to have a transient life, transient friends, transient relationships.
It somehow repels me, the idea of a life busy so much so that writing becomes a chore.
That pondering, whilst sitting, and wondering is no more what people do today. Why would they? They have the TV!
People do write, or at least try to, I think, still. Somewhere, somehow. And with the spirit, thus, this is being written. But then, again, why am I writing to YOU?
I love writing, that is why. I love writers, that is why.
ReplyDeleteMe: I have wished for a box full of inland letters and postcards to go through, whenever I sipped my lil cup of frothy coffee. I have wished for the scent of envelopes and the fancy little stamps from countries they come from. I have wished for the longing and curiosity to receive a reply after days or even weeks from a stranger. I have wished for the weird happiness of un-gluing the envelopes; of finding a hand written note. I have wished for day-dreams that words could sew into blankets of endless thoughts.
Have you ever imagined what the world would be without curiosity? The curiosity to know someone who you've never seen, never heard. Yet while reading all those letters, you have a voice ringing in your ears- a voice you quite familiarize yourself with, every time the post man passes by your house.
I want to preserve the dusty, half torn letters, the souvenirs from various cities, the postcards and photographs, the scent of the hills, the warmth of the beaches, the old wife tales of witches and princesses. I want to get nostalgic, pulling out a box full of letters, from under the bed, after twenty years.
This is my secret, I'm in love with people I don't know.
Yet no one ever has the time to stop by and say, 'Hi.'
Hi!
ReplyDeleteI said hey :)