Letter writing

Last night we watched Beaches with Bette Midler and Barbara Hershey. It is a relationship film about the friendship of two women from very different backgrounds and what happens to them. It is one of my favourite films and always makes ne cry at the end. My DH enjoys the film as well. We first discovered it when I was pregnant with my eldest. He'd half-forgotten where Pouncer the wonder cat came from.

It made me think how much things have changed.

My eldest is about to go to Moscow with his school in two weeks time. Thus fulfilling my promise that he could. For those who don't know -- once I was first writing, he obviously thought I was not paying attention and after series of I gather frustrated questions, he asked if he could go to Moscow to which I replied yes.

When I used to go off to camp, parents were always told to write. Letters were the big deal. None of that now. The students were told that they could take a mobile phone and charger. No address was given to write to.

Watching the movie, reminded me of the excitment I used to get when I opened my friends' letters, holding the envelope in my hand, looking at the wrting and the anxious seconds of tearing it open. Reading it onceand then again. Between email and mobile phones, I don't write many personal letters these days. Maybe I should.

Up in the attic, sits the boxes of letters my dh and I exchanged over our courtship. Well read, and lovingly preserved. Would I have kept emails in the same way?

I do make a point to print out my reader's emails and treasure them, so perhaps I would have. Maybe it is the act of keeping and treasuring that is important.

But without a doubt a letter (however it comes) brings a certain comfort.