The Poignancy Of Letters

I have, for quite a while, been slowly working my way through the biography of Albert Einstein. It is not a quick read for one who is less than brilliant in higher mathematics and physics, yet I find it appealing and enjoy the snail's pace with which I read. I try and garner as much knowledge in areas I spent the younger portion of my days dawdling through classes. Somehow, a bit of age has opened my mind to more, and overall, the importance of not only the large and infinite, but the small and ephemeral.
So much of the book was documented through written correspondence....the story of one of the most brilliant minds in our time scratched quickly in letters to and from; some work related, many personal, jokes, thoughts, theories. The sum of this man could fairly be established by all the hand written letters he sent.
And yet, here I sit at a computer; a machine without soul nor the emphasis of my eagerness in writing as it would be with a pen to paper.
As collage and mixed media artists, we crave the old letters written to long gone lovers, notes in the margins of books, the pencil or pen melded to the aged paper. We purchase what was once thrown away as insignificant, of no use, read perhaps once and then disposed of.
But the heart of this matter:
What will we leave to the generations after us when handwritten letters are no longer a form of corresponding? How can they appreciate the beauty of a solitary capital letter put to paper in elegant script when all that is known is the sometimes impersonal e-mail? And yes, I am at fault with this as much as any other....I have succumbed to the fast, the instant, the *interpret-as-you-will* plainness of the mechanical age. My own cursive writing has diminished in quality as I have spent more and more time behind a black keyboard and bright computer screen. The long, beautiful ascenders and descenders that I learned in parochial school from the old Palmer Penmanship books seem to have disappeared into some contorted shorthand or chicken-scratch.
Occasionally I do not recognize my own signature when scrawled across a machine that accepts credit cards. The markers by which strangers knew it was indeed *US* making a purchase are diminished to a pen that is not a pen traveling haphazardly and awkwardly upon a signing screen, often a millisecond behind what we are writing, making it even more loathesome.
And yet, I blog. I sit and think, "Do I have anything worthy of my readers time today? What shall I post?"
I sit and journal, for the world--instantly--to read and judge and comment upon.
And I do not put pen to paper very often.
Thus I return to Einstein and all the letters documenting every part of his life and what was learned from them, and I ask myself, will there be anything documenting us? Will we leave marks that can be passed through generations---a papertrail of our lives, our loves, our work and passions? When we lose the written page permanently, what a sad day it will be!
Of course, the efficiency of machinery cannot be duplicated through man, but maybe that is not the point.
In some cases, perhaps it is that extra pen flourish, the weight of the line, the delicate paper that bears the touch of lipstick to some lover far away.
If we treasure these ephemeral tidbits as artists, then we above all others should see the value in the preservation of this fine art.
Shall we write?
I should hope so........

Pax.