Running for Your Life: The Letter Campaign

So, I’m off to a slow start. No, this isn’t a political gesture. It’s personal.

Letters to friends. You know, written-down-on paper expressions of feelings and half-constructed beliefs that mark your time on Earth better than any other mode of activity. So much so that those letters received from a person on that particular path – that is, reaching out in an unselfish, giving way, being open and vulnerable and funny and doubt-ridden – are kept as intimate treasures.

I’ve got the bug. And the tool, or at least the most important one: the pen that writes for eternity. (See prior blogpost called On Writing – Letters, That Is.)

This weekend (Aug. 4-6) I’ll get the rest of the gear: colored paper (my pen leaves pencil-like impressions so the letter will be much easier to read if I write on bright orange stock, or maroon, if I can find it.) Maroon and gray (the pencil color) –  team colors of the University of Ottawa Gee-Gees – will make for a nice effect. Not my alma mater (I went to rival Carleton), but I did prefer the look of their sports uniforms.

And stamps. Some for my Canadian correspondents and some for my American ones. I’ve my eye on a pal in Paris, too. The guy I have in mind strikes me as someone who would like the idea of this.

I will not keep a copy of what I write, though. You’d think I would but no. I write not for posterity. To think that my letters will survive me. Rather, I’m charmed by the thought that these letters are my own personal Tibetan sand drawings. Once they leave my desk and go off in the post, they are gone. It will be enough to  feel the sense of them in the replies, the ones I hope to find in my mailbox. And those, I can assure you, I will keep.

One day, perhaps, I will visit one of my “lettermates” and we will bring with us our mutual cache of written treasures to a neutral meeting place and exchange the physical objects for a day. Maybe even agree to exchange our letters for a time. Say a month, or a year, and see how that feels.

Afterward, we will restore the letters to their rightful owner. As we continue to build more.

Next: Running for Your Life: “Chillest” Triathlon Ever