The Get Happy challenge over at the Frugalette this week was to write a letter to someone. Since I actually already did this (several times over) for the first challenge a few weeks back to “focus on relationships…”
…at Rodolfo’s suggestion I tried something a little different today. And actually, since he sat down and tried it with me, it was a little like “working on relationships” at the same time. So it all adds up.
So what did we do?
We broke out the nib pens and the inkwell and partied like it’s 1899.
In an era when people send messages with one fingertip from a touchscreen, it was really nice to remember just a little glimpse of what life was like way back when.
At one point while writing a letter to his best friend, Rodolfo accidentally re-closed a parenthetical statement that he had already closed. (That is, the sentence has two close-parenthesis but only one open-parenthesis.) Like this.) He laughed and said, “This is the real deal! In life, there is no backspace!”
I also have a habit of resting my hand on the page while I write, which is not good when it takes the ink such a long time to dry. So you have to be able to live with a few mistakes and the schmutz your hand leaves behind when you accidentally smear the line above the one you are writing. You also have to learn the timing of the pen; you have to remember to dip it again before it goes dry and stops writing and messes you up again. It takes a long time to make something worthwhile, but even when it is not perfect, it is something beautiful.
In life as it is in calligraphy.
How wonderful!! I am thoroughly enjoying your blog and I think this is a lovely idea!!!
Thank you, Nora! We had a lot of fun attempting it and I think our friends really enjoyed getting the mail!
Nice! Writing letters=awesome. I actually wrote two this week!
Chandra
http://www.momomod.com
That’s great, Chandra! I am a huge fan of snail mail! Have you ever heard of Swap-Bot.com? If you really like snail mail too, I think you could have a lot of fun over there. That’s how I swap teas with people from all over the world!
We had so much fun! We should try it some time again soon! Next time, we will use some of those fancy different types of nibs we have, and the gold ink you gave me as a present a while back!
This is beautiful Jessa! I love how you both made “mistakes”. I made a couple when I was using a regular pen. it’s amazing how texting/typing have made us fool-proof in these mistakes with an easy backspace to edit it out, no backspaces in real life!
It’s true! Sometimes when I’m making something, I find myself really wishing that life in general had a Ctrl+Z option!
But I do really love going back to the analog way of doing things sometimes! It’s good to unplug every now and then.
When I sit down to write letters, I always bust out my pens, nibs, and inkwell. Totally makes the process better.
That’s awesome! I write a lot of letters and the inkwell is such a big production, but I really think it gives letters a little something extra, plus it’s lots of fun! Good for you!