I’ve shared stories with you before about people who had been penpals for many, many decades. Here is another one I ran across about two women who have been writing to each other since they were pre-teens and are now in their 70’s. How remarkable! Enjoy!

Read: Across the Pond…

Tags: penpals

Liss over at A Memory Forever is making a new meme or game or pay-it-forward or whatever cool name you want to call it.

She’s asking people to become Snail Mail Angels and for them to inspire others to do the same. Who knows what it will turn into, but let’s give her a hand in encouraging people to write more letters.

Head over to her announcement post.

Tags: snail mail angel

An Ethical Will is a document plainly understood as a legacy letter. Traditional ethical wills, originating in the Biblical period, were the responsibility of fathers to transmit ethical values to their sons. Contemporary ethical wills are written at every age, often in times of transition and personal challenge by men and women alike. – Excerpt from Life-Legacies by Rachel Freed

When I became a mother I started writing letters to my son because, at first, I was afraid I wouldn’t be up to the task of motherhood and it seemed inevitable that I’d mess it up in some way and that eventually he would do what all kids frequently do… torment their parents about all the ways they messed up their children resulting in years of therapy and thousands of dollars in “couch time”. I thought, “Wouldn’t it be nice if my son had a chance to know me as I am NOW when he is a baby because by the time he is able to have adult conversations with me I will be a vastly different person than I am now. I will be a different mom than I first was and he will never have a way to know that FIRST mommy that I used to be.”

As I wrote these letters I found myself passing on bits of advice and other things I thought were important, little things I wondered if my boys would ever sit still long enough for me to tell them, things they would probably just roll their eyes at. To be fair, I never appreciated the advice people gave me until I got well into my 20’s. I think that’s just human nature, a simple issue of maturity.

Today I ran across a web site that talks about legacy letters or ethical wills. These are documents you can write to pass on your values to your children or grandchildren as a legacy to them, just like you might pass on your grandmother’s tea set or whatever.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we all had documents like this from our fathers, mothers, grandparents, and many many more way back to hundreds of years to the past? What a fabulous legacy! Would you consider writing one to your children or other relatives?

Go check out the site at Life-Legacies. The site has some sample legacy letters as well as a free e-newsletter that contains tips that will help you make your own letters. At the site you can also read about how legacy letters can not only benefit those who come after you but how it can help you in your life today.

Tags: ethical will, family, heritage, legacy letters

I ran across a blog called “Please Don’t Eat Sushi! Love, Mom”

Once I got there I couldn’t stop reading. It’s a collection of letters curated from this fella. All the letters are from his mom and they are strange… short, intense, surreal, possibly crazy. I can’t decide if I’m looking at “real” crazy or just someone who is strangely quirky with a sense of humor. Right now I’m leaning toward plain old garden-variety crazy. No offense to the son, of course. Anyway, definitely worth a read.

I had my own bit of letter writing crazy with my dad’s mom. I have them all somewhere and hope to unearth them one of these days and share them. All she did all day long is write letters. Hers were long, page after page, and filled with newspaper clippings with scribbles in the margins. Sometimes other people’s letters were included and those were scribbled on, too. She always had a running commentary on life and now that I think about it would have made on awesome blogger had she been born later.

She’s gone now and I miss her brand of crazy. Who in your family writes you letters? Do you have any good stories you can share with me?

Tags: crazy letters, web site

I recently read an interesting article about the poet Frank O’Hara who wrote a poetry book called “Lunch Poems”.

The article discussed these wonderful little poems about New York that O’Hara would whip out during his lunch break, usually 30 minutes or less. In plain language they captured the essence of the city around him. He never let the time interfere with his passion for writing and made writing at lunch his daily ritual.

It’s easy to allow our busy lives to be an excuse to not write letters. I have a two year old and, believe me, if anyone has a “busy” excuse it would be me. But I was so inspired by this article. Heck, I have to stop and eat lunch… why not eat for half my lunch and jot a letter for the other half? Just a quick note — love notes, thank you notes, appreciation notes, little poems. What can you write during your lunch hour?

Try it for a week and see what happens.

Tags: lunch letters, time management