I was planning on a discussion of the upcoming holiday weekend (What's a "holiday"?) but when I tried to sign in everything had changed since Saturday. The sign in is different. The "interface" is different. I don't like different. I never have. For the last 45 minutes I have been doing a "live chat" with about six different people, located God only knows where, who have been trying to help me get onto this page. My blood pressure, never good, is getting worse by the minute.
It occurs to me how completely dependent I (we?) have become on technology. I still write a letter once in a great while and stick a stamp in the corner. I did that the other day when I came across a friend's name in my prayers and realized I didn't have a phone number for him. Yesterday I got a return card with a little note inside. My first thought was "I know that handwriting!" and it was a nice, intimate feeling. My second thought was how many people I care about whose handwriting I have never seen. It made me sad.
My older son loves to cook and also loves his grandfather (as do we all). For his Christmas present a few years ago I had my father-in-law write out the recipe for pancakes my kids had been helping him with since they had to stand on a chair to stir the batter. I put it in a frame and it is hanging in his room to this day. This year it was a hand-written copy for Papa's squash pie which is a family staple. That one is in a frame and on top of the piano, but pictures have been taken and are frequently consulted when he needs to throw something together for a party in San Francisco. The actual framed copies are treasures for him. I found a recipe one of my teachers gave me when I got my first apartment. Everyone seems to be digging deeply through piles of memories as we spend the pandemic tidying up. The sight of Rosemary's handwriting warmed my heart and made me both feel her presence and intensely miss her at the same time. No one has ever put a blue ribbon around a pile of e-mails.
So although I seem to have temporarily stumbled into the section of the site where I needed to be in order to put this thought together, I have also stumbled onto the urge to write more letters and send more cards. As we need to touch one another to feel connected, part of the reason this social distancing is so horribly difficult, we need tangible evidence during the dark hours which we can read and touch and commune with. There is a special kind of magic in the token of love which is still there when the power fails.
It occurs to me how completely dependent I (we?) have become on technology. I still write a letter once in a great while and stick a stamp in the corner. I did that the other day when I came across a friend's name in my prayers and realized I didn't have a phone number for him. Yesterday I got a return card with a little note inside. My first thought was "I know that handwriting!" and it was a nice, intimate feeling. My second thought was how many people I care about whose handwriting I have never seen. It made me sad.
My older son loves to cook and also loves his grandfather (as do we all). For his Christmas present a few years ago I had my father-in-law write out the recipe for pancakes my kids had been helping him with since they had to stand on a chair to stir the batter. I put it in a frame and it is hanging in his room to this day. This year it was a hand-written copy for Papa's squash pie which is a family staple. That one is in a frame and on top of the piano, but pictures have been taken and are frequently consulted when he needs to throw something together for a party in San Francisco. The actual framed copies are treasures for him. I found a recipe one of my teachers gave me when I got my first apartment. Everyone seems to be digging deeply through piles of memories as we spend the pandemic tidying up. The sight of Rosemary's handwriting warmed my heart and made me both feel her presence and intensely miss her at the same time. No one has ever put a blue ribbon around a pile of e-mails.
So although I seem to have temporarily stumbled into the section of the site where I needed to be in order to put this thought together, I have also stumbled onto the urge to write more letters and send more cards. As we need to touch one another to feel connected, part of the reason this social distancing is so horribly difficult, we need tangible evidence during the dark hours which we can read and touch and commune with. There is a special kind of magic in the token of love which is still there when the power fails.
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