My brother Scriptor Senex posted the following quote from The Letters Page. on Scriptor's Postcards at ‘A letter is not a system of debt.’
And this editor has noticed, in a recent revival of personal correspondence-by-post, how easily people feel the burden of letter writing. ‘I’m sorry I haven’t replied sooner,’ our letters all seem to begin, in the tone of a muttering student handing in a late assignment. Dear readers and fellow letter-writers, don’t be so burdened! Write, or don’t write, but enjoy it when you do. It’s nice to reply to a letter, but there’s no need to turn it into a chore; after all, if there’s a message that can’t wait, you can always send an email. (Remember email?) One of our editorial board members, the poet and publisher Éireann Lorsung, puts it very well: ‘A letter,’ she tweeted recently, ‘is not a system of debt.’
It rang a really pertinent chord with me. I consider myself extremely fortunate in that I have relatively little real stress in my life at the moment but several things do pray on my mind daily and one of those is keeping in touch with people who are important to me. Often a day passes with so many things happening but letters and emails unanswered and unwritten. So often I put my head on the pillow with the resolve that that letter will be written before I do anything else tomorrow and so often I make the same promise to myself the following night.
Am I alone?
