Precious Time

Lately, far more often than I'd like to admit, I've found myself thinking, "I don't have time to write a letter today," or "I'll write tomorrow" or "Maybe I'll find time this weekend."

It's not that life hasn't indeed been busy. A family member was recently hospitalized. My toddler--despite being on the run and up the walls and down the stairs all day long--never seems to get tired. Expanded responsibilities and new technologies challenge me at my job.

No, it's not that extra time and energy aren't scarce. Rather, it's the conclusions I draw about that reality--that somehow, using some of my precious minutes to write a letter is either too relaxing (shouldn't I be cleaning the refrigerator instead?) or not relaxing enough (why not just unwind with some channel surfing and chardonnay?)

But when I do compose a note, as I did recently to my friend L from college, I am reminded that letter writing offers both discipline and release. Sure, putting pen to paper is a mental exercise requiring a bit more time and physical labor than texting, but, done right, it's a spiritual practice too. I suppose some letters for some people are a blood pressure-raising experience, but I have chosen to devote none of mine to settling scores with adversaries or hashing out bygone dramas with estranged relatives. Instead, my letters to friends and family reminisce on shared good times, recall old jokes and recognize how enriched I am by the blessings my relationships have bestowed. Like I told L:

I am so glad we have kept in touch through our Christmas cards. I look forward every year to your letter--I so enjoy hearing about your travels and your charity work, and I am so inspired by your sense of adventure and optimism.

It's when I'm most busy, my days filled with opportunities and obligations, that I most need a practice that encourages me to slow down, be thankful and think abundantly. While letter writing can seemingly threaten to leave me with less precious time, in the end it helps to make more of my time precious.

Write on.

MUCH MORE THAN COOKIES: More than a dozen women who were Girl Scouts together almost 40 years ago have kept their friendships strong. I am inspired, and a little nostalgic for our my own fond memories of Camp Wood E Lo Hi.

Letters for a Rainy Day

This morning I was traveling in Iowa with my son T and thought I'd take him to the Macbride Raptor Project before we headed home. I used to visit the owls (my favorite animal) frequently when I lived in Iowa; seeing their majesty always gives me a sense of great peace and serenity.

The Raptor Project is nestled in the University of Iowa Macbride Nature Recreation Area, with the rehabilitated and permanently disabled raptors in spacious outdoor cages you can walk past on a dirt path. As luck would have it, no sooner had I pulled into the parking lot than the heavens opened up. No way I was going to be pushing T in his stroller in the pouring rain.

As I drove back toward the highway, I passed scenic picnic areas overlooking Lake Macbride. When I heard T sigh heavily--a sure sign that he had settled in for a long nap in his car seat--I knew I needed to seize the opportunity for some quiet, beautifully situated, writing time.

I pulled into a picnic area and sat in the front seat of my car, writing letters as rain pelted the windshield. I wrote to my coworker J, thanking her for being a sounding board and also inspiring me to get more involved in my community, get out more socially and just generally have a life outside the office (being somewhat of a homebody may support motherhood and my letter-writing habit but, honestly, I do need the dust blown off me once in a while).

I also wrote to M, one of my childhood best friends, letting her know how much--even though we rarely correspond anymore--I still cherish the memories of Barbies, trips to the beach and dance routines performed in the livingroom for our (incredibly patient and kind) relatives. Writing to M, I was struck with some of the same thoughts I'd had when I wrote to S, the mother of another childhood friend. I noted to M and S that the happy memories recalled as I wrote letters to them are helping me realize how much I want T to have a small town life--a community where neighbors know each other and kids still ride their bikes and play kickball after dinner. It took motherhood, I guess, to make me nostalgic for the kind of upbringing I had, and now I want T to be able to run with a pack of good buddies and make the kind of memories I made with M, S's daughter J and my other friends.

I looked at the clock. 90 minutes had passed like nothing at all. And even though I didn't get to see Duke--my favorite great-horned owl whose disability has made him a longtime resident of the Raptor Project--I still felt extraordinarily peaceful, and serene, as I made my way back to the highway and headed home.

MORE WEATHER-INSPIRED WRITING: This morning as I wrote I thought of Jackie at the Letters and Journals blog, who wrote recently about her own stormy letters. I eagerly await receiving my first issue of the Letters and Journals magazine, which Jackie plans to launch late this year or in early 2011.

It's About Time

My 7-month-old son, T, pulled the name of my dad--also T, my son's namesake--out of THE LETTER JAR last Saturday.

Same son kept me too busy on Saturday to write. So I started the letter on Sunday.

And worked on it a little on Monday.

And finished it today.

It made for a somewhat disjointed experience, stopping and starting like that, even if I did have in mind from the beginning an idea of what I was going to say. And as I sat there this morning in my recliner, wrapping up the letter, I did have an appreciation for e-mail's allure. Let's face it: I probably could have written my father--and mother and brother and mother-in-law and several best friends and my hairdresser--any number of e-mails in that same time frame. My words-per-minute score isn't that great, but I'm sure I can type faster than I can write.

But.

Therein lies the rub. I type faster than I write from a purely mechanical standpoint, yes, but a mental perspective too. When I'm typing an e-mail, I'm fairly aware I'm simply skimming the surface of my mind, offering a quick update about the kids, a little tidbit about work, some pleasant inquiries as to what's been happening on the other person's end.

But to put pen to paper and write ... it feels important and I happily, easily even, put forth the kind of thought I feel the process deserves. Themes emerge and my vocabulary expands as I take what feels like a cherished opportunity to tell my letter recipient how I feel about him or her.

I heard an NPR interview the other day with Nicholas Carr, author of The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains. Carr maintains, based on his own experience and the hours of research he has done, that all our time online--quickly moving from skimming a story on a news site to browsing the RSS feed of our favorite blog to checking our e-mail and rinsing and repeating over and over--is cutting into our attention span and making it difficult for us to concentrate on kind of things we used to spend our free time doing. Things like reading books.

And writing.

Carr says we can stem the effects of Internet overuse by devoting equal time to activities of deeper concentration, which gives me reason again to believe I'm on the right track with this letterwriting journey. (I will admit to some doubt as my recent letter turned into a multi-day project.) This blog is evidence enough that I'm not about to abandon my Web-surfing ways, but to have another reason to spend some hours unplugged, with just my pen and paper, is fine by me.