I can hardly imagine the day technology could substitute the pleasure of sending and receiving letters or postcards. No secret I am a big fan of this practice, and facing the lack of adepts among my friends, I ended up joining Postcrossing (which I find a brilliant project!).
Sure Skype does a great job in connecting people, that is indisputable (Skype has in fact been my most frequent companion in the past couple of years). But I feel that the paper brings a more poetic presence of the person missed - and this has nothing to do with the writer linguistic skills. It is about the emotion of finding an envelope when coming home after a long day, those few seconds of anxiety to discover the content while tearing the envelope that feels like ages, the feeling that this piece of paper carries bits of someone and that it travelled all the way, across countries and oceans, only to bring you that message.
I cry a river whenever I receive letters from my grandparents and my aunt Laiz, from Brazil. The letters are not sad, quite the contrary. Full of love and care, they always comfort me. Choices I have made in life have set us apart, and I miss them everyday. Today I received another letter full or art, as they always are.
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| with love, from Atibaia |
