Issue No. 2: Handwritten Letters, The Value of Craft and The Wisdom Of Our Hands
Welcome to the September edition.
The past few days have been all about easing back into regular life. We just got back from a short holiday, and currently in the middle of figuring out routines, cleaning, cooking, resuming work projects, so our schedule’s been pretty packed. But I wanted to take a few minutes in the midst all this and write a little letter to Nabeel. We hadn’t travelled together since quite a few years, and I felt so grateful for the joy and companionship that we could enjoy within this trip. And because we all end up getting pulled into everyday life eventually, I wanted to write something for him while this was fresh in my heart and mind.
So earlier this evening, after wrapping up chores for the day, I got my stuff together and settled into one corner of our kitchen island. It’s this little spot close to the window, looking out into the backyard. The light also falls really nice and soft here, I sometimes work from here when I need change from the usual. But anyway, I’m digressing and so coming back to today, this is where I sat down after all was done and wrote a letter of love and gratitude for Nabeel.
Pulled out a page from my everyday notebook, borrowed one of his old-school ink pens, drew my thoughts away in my less-than-perfect writing, over raw, ripped edges of the paper, all very basic, nothing too special. But I feel like the magic of the handwritten letter is such that even with its imperfections and scribbles and crossed out words, it carries with it, that thought and intimacy, that sometimes a lot of things in life may not. Nabeel and I do write cards to each other from time to time - at birthdays, special career moments – and they also mean so much, but one of my more recent dreams in life, has been to create that treasure of traditional handwritten letters. To feel that old school charm of storing away a stack of envelopes, to open and reopen over the years, with aged paper, private thoughts. So, I’ve been taking out time, now and then, once every few months or so, to indulge my little dream, and so I wrote one today. Slipped it into an envelope, dropped it in our mailbox, for him to chance upon one of these days.
You know, the thing about letters written by hand…is that they’re written by hand. Emails and instant messaging have undeniably simplified life in so many ways, but the thing about us humans is that we can often lose touch with the art of moderation. And so, while they’ve given us such a gift of comfort and convenience, because of a lack of moderation, these very things have also taken away the beauty of drawing words, of investing thought before expression. My own personal skills have never been too special but no matter how we write or scribble, no matter how perfect or imperfect it looks, our handwriting is unique to each one of us, almost like a fingerprint. Exclusive, all yours and the one you write for. And because we can’t write as fast as we type, it carries a certain coolness of thought, some deliberation, care.
The past few years I’ve been thinking a lot about consciously doing things with my hands. I remember telling Nabeel very randomly one day, about four or five years ago, that I want to buy something, anything, that I could spend time creating with my hands. It didn’t matter what it was, just simple enough so I could at least slowly keep getting through it. I’d noticed myself no longer having any hobbies at all, spending time after work, either only watching TV or scrolling through my phone, and I just wanted to try having an evening or two each week, where I could spend some time (a few minutes or hours, at the time, I didn’t know how much I wanted out of it). But to slowly work at something with my hands.
We headed out on one of those weekends, went to a store, browsed through some craft kits and I picked up a small, beginner level one for macrame. Brought it home, left it sitting around for quite some time because life happens to all of us, and then one random weekend afternoon, I picked it up and got started.