Letter writing is a lost art form. Sure, we send e-mails, memos,
formal business letters, etc., but those are all functional
documents. Rarely do they reflect the life of the author, which is
why my son’s letters from Iraq have become more important than a
quick phone call.
The things my son says to himself in his
”
letters addressed to me
”
tell me he understands who he is and what he needs to do. What
we articulate over the telephone or through other communication
devises, often, is not what we intended to say.
Letter writing is a lost art form. Sure, we send e-mails, memos, formal business letters, etc., but those are all functional documents. Rarely do they reflect the life of the author, which is why my son’s letters from Iraq have become more important than a quick phone call.
The things my son says to himself in his “letters addressed to me” tell me he understands who he is and what he needs to do. What we articulate over the telephone or through other communication devises, often, is not what we intended to say. Personally, I have written letters that started out friendly, but ended up angry. While the advent of computers has increased our speed, it has decreased introspective. With a computer, you can modify and polish, delete if necessary, but a hand written letter takes time to compose.
When writing by hand, an eraser, a crossed out word or even a tossed, crumpled sheet of paper can purge an unfriendly thought without a trace, but you have to start the letter over – you don’t have that little arrow on your PC screen to instantly make a change. Therefore, you write and toss, each time getting the words just a little closer to what is actually how you feel.
It isn’t just computers that take away the personal voice, but cell-phones and answering machines, too, create a “distance” between communicating parties.
When I talk to my son in Iraq over the “big cell phone,” it’s the same verbal dance we’ve done for the last 23 years. Both of us concerned about causing worry to the other one, so the conversation is limited to these continuations of chitchat.
“Hey, how’s it going? Things are fine here (in Iraq) – it’s pretty tame,” Ryan says.
But when I read his handwritten letters, I hear a different voice.
It’s funny, Ryan tries to sound so nonchalant about everything because he thinks it will reduce his mother’s fears. But it’s his very coolness that lets me know he understands where he is and what he’s doing.
Ryan is so young, but his “voice” is old. Iraq gives him his first go-round with so many feelings and concerns.
“From such a close perspective, you know, ma,” he wrote, “we have become so barbaric (I’m fine – just so you know), but WOW – what a mess. This place will rot until the end of time.”
It’s my son’s letters that reassure me, not his phone calls. The feelings Ryan puts on paper are complex, conversant and hopeful, while at the same time, he’s dodging bullets from AK-47’s, RPG’s and chasing Baath Party terrorists.
“I can’t wait to be part of a more civil existence,” he wrote. “I can’t wait to come home – I have a lot to do when I get back.”
The thing about writing a letter by hand is what starts out as a communication with someone drifts into a conversation within yourself, revealing a light into the soul. While reading Ryan’s letters, I feel him drifting into a conversation more with himself than with me.
“We, as people, started out following a certain scripture. We started out simple, fair, reasonable, but things are far different today. Now I start to question who the hell we really are, as people,” he wrote.
Unlike our phone conversations, in his letters, Ryan picks his words carefully. In his letters he can choose the nuance, but he can’t get way from the subject matter of where he is.
In his recent letter, Ryan revealed the loneliness a soldier faces when he is away from home.
“I’m doing my best to kill time out here. I think things have caught up with me. It seems like forever ago since I’ve been home, wherever the hell that might be,” he wrote. “P.S. My hand is killing me – I hate writing with a pen. If I had a laptop computer, I could move my fingers right across the keyboard. Love Ya! Gotta go Ryan.”
“Dear Ryan, ‘home’ is where your mother is…”
Linda Lee King is a Free Lance correspondant. She can be reached at wi*******@**no.com
