I’m just starting to be able to write by hand again. The cancer and radiation damage in my eyes made it impossible for a handful of years. My father-in-law set me up with a special computer screen, but I dearly missed the feel of a fountain pen, the flow of ink onto paper, the texture of good cotton rag stationery… My daughter says her thoughts arrange themselves better when she writes with pen and paper; composition on a computer feels unnatural to her. Her homework tonight for her summer school class is to write pages of very complex kanji. She’s radiantly happy.

When I was in college (early 80′s), my mom and dad each wrote to me every week, my grandparents not quite so often. I would read the letters aloud in the post office, then put them on my dorm room door for everyone to read. Treasures from home. I still have reams of letters and when life nips at my heels, I sit down for a good cry and a read.