Pen and ink

I’ve spent the greater part of this afternoon handwriting letters, many of them rather overdue, and have been glad of it. Letter-writing slows me down and focuses heart and soul and mind. The deliberate, precise marks of pen and ink upon paper need to be made slowly enough to allow for deciphering later – always a tricky business with my hand; and for reflection upon things one wants to share with the recipient, and upon the person herself or himself, and upon where our life-correspondence has brought us thus far, making of quietness a necessity.

This is wholesome and good. Both the address and the quietness in which it is made remind me that all of our lives are sustained in relationship. We make marks upon paper in much the same way that our addressees, and life itself, make marks upon us, and we upon them. Unique and very personal signature beneath “yours ever”, or “sincerely”, or “faithfully” or “gratefully”, or “with love” brings persons into one another’s company, wheresoever we or they may be. And in company there can be no limit to the possibilities we may come to see.