The Power of Mail and the Art of Letter Writing
The Second Cup Newsletter | Issue 01
Dear Friends,
I have been rubbing my hands together in anticipation of writing this letter to you. The first official newsletter of The Second Cup - the big 01. Hoorah.
I’m excited to share this weekly time together because I - I believe in the power of mail. This morning the air had that distinct crispness which signals the change of the season, and the cool moisture that clung with the fog was giving off serious fall vibes. It was the type of morning Kathleen Kelly would just love: the essence of autumn touched the earth, just for a few brief hours, and with it came a tiny thrill of expectancy. Sending and receiving mail comes with that same thrill, which is maybe why Kathleen Kelly said so famously in You’ve Got Mail:
“I go online, and my breath catches in my chest until I hear three little words: You've got mail. I hear nothing. Not even a sound on the streets of New York, just the beating of my own heart.”
What’s the last piece of fun mail you received? How did you feel as you pulled the stack from your mailbox and you discovered that handwritten address or colorful envelope, just peeking out at you from between the Market Basket specials and internet bill? Did your breath catch a little in your chest, too?
The last piece I received was from Rachel, my sister. It was just a little card, and for no apparent occasion. But what she wrote inside was the exact vote of confidence that I needed to finally work up the courage to write full-time. She said, I’m so proud of you and know you have the right stuff to make all your dreams come true. I love you.
Way better than a Spectrum bill.
See, mail has the power to move us. To move our minds toward new understandings. To move our souls toward togetherness. To move our feet toward new ways of living. Plus, it’s just really fun.
I love that we can connect in this way, via newsletter on the Internet. [I’m also grateful that dial-up is dead.] There is so much value in coming together as a community of people with the intention of delving into life together. It can get wild out there, folks - community is what makes it beautiful and tolerable and a little less nonsensical.
I also love that we can still - in this age where everything is very fast and our phones are binging with DMs and many of our relationships exist in a digital sense - pick up a pen and some pretty stationary and wield the power to make someone’s breath catch in their throat when they open their mailbox.
September, this heavenly month of brisk, moody mornings and sun-baked afternoons, invites us to begin the process of tucking in for a new season. The month will soon give way to Autumn, and re-watching You’ve Got Mail, and consuming all things pumpkin. We’ll dust off our InstaPots and make cheesy soups and snuggle into cardigans. Perhaps, as we introduce a new rhythm and a new season, we can introduce a new habit, too: Letter writing.
There are entire books composed of collections of letters between famous people. These letters were not just simple “hellos” - they were exchanges that expressed the authors’ very creeds. They tangoed with doubts and questions and emotions together and, over time, when viewed as a collection, recorded the evolution of their identities, and also their relationships.
Let’s become letter writers again. Let’s allow ourselves to slow down, to search for an address and lick an envelope and walk to the mailbox and wait for it to be received. Let’s see what that does for our souls. Let’s see what it does for our sense of community.
Will you join me? I made a checklist of 10 letters to write in September. You can get it by clicking the PDF file just below this letter. I’ll be posting my progress on the checklist throughout the month with the #writemoreletters. I can’t wait to see yours.
With love,
Deidre
Weekly Reads
This Week’s Second Cup Post:
Did you miss this one from Tuesday? I’ve got you. More on community and why we gotta, just gotta, have it.
What I’m reading right now:
The Lost Art of Dying by L.S. Dugdale, MD
I’ve been reading lots of books on dying as research for an upcoming project [stay tuned!]. You might think that sounds morbid, but I find it strangely… life-giving. We’re all mortal, and learning ways to reckon with that can be tremendously helpful for our mental and spiritual health.
Dugdale, a doctor who has years of experience treating dying patients, writes about an ancient text called the ars moriendi - The Art of Dying, that helped people learn how approach death. She argues that dying privately in hospitals is a fairly new development, and discusses how it leaves us entirely unprepared to die well. This book is fascinating, sometimes sad, and often eye-opening.
What I’m Listening to Right Now:
Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art by James Nestor
People. This guy is claiming that we can lower our blood pressure, treat cancer, fix our poor dental health, clear our clogged sinuses, and sleep without snoring, just by changing the way we breath. And honestly? I think I believe him.
Back with tons of research, Nestor dives into the lost art of breathing. It’s BLOWING. MY. MIND. [Also, I’m noticing that both of my books this week are about lost arts, and I wrote to you above about the lost art of letter writing. I’m suddenly sensing a pattern!]
Verse of the Week:
1 Kings 19:9-18: Elijah’s Encounter with the Lord
Elijah, a prophet of the Lord, is terrified and running for his life. He’s a wanted man. He hides alone in a cave, and there encounters the Lord’s presence:
“At that moment, the Lord passed by. A great and mighty wind was tearing at the mountains and was shattering cliffs before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake. After the earthquake there was a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire there was a voice, a soft whisper. When Elijah heart it, he wrapped his face in his mantle and went out and stood at the entrance of the cave” (1 Kings 18:11-13).
Here’s what is hitting my heart: God talks to his people in a soft whisper.
If we can’t hear God’s voice, is it really because he’s not talking to us [as I often assume], or is it because we can’t hear it above the noise of our lives? I don’t just mean actual auditory noise. I also mean the whirring of our calendars, the busyness of our brains, and the distractions we submit to daily.
This coming week, I’m going to try to embrace some new rhythms to help me get quiet enough to hear God when he whispers.
From the Archives:
Dear Phone, You're Not Invited
In keeping with this week’s theme of getting quiet and slowing down, here’s a throwback post about our love-hate relationship with our phones [and what we can choose instead].
