Writing Letters To Return To A Nostalgia I Never Knew
From the start of lockdown, up until now, I have spent most days writing essays as I have scrambled to wrap up my master’s degree under the strange conditions we find ourselves in. Unfortunately, quarantine has left me very little room to have a break from myself - I often like to write in my spare time but whilst I’m doing university work it feels as if I should be dedicating every waking hour to my dissertation and it feels too close to working. I normally drown myself in whatever is new on Netflix, whatever is easy to watch, but quarantine has made me all too familiar with my heavy reliance on technology.
Quarantine has certainly inspired a sense of nostalgia in me, a return to the old ways of doing things: taking the time to cook from scratch, baking bread, sewing. I wanted to combine my love of writing but also taking steps away from technology into letter writing. Some of my friends I haven’t seen for going on six months now, but I have kept in touch with them through writing letters. Not only does this give me a break from my essay writing with a clearly defined start and end which I can’t seem to find in my other creative work, but it also gives me a chance to step back from myself and reflect. As I wrote to my friend Gen, writing letters made me feel like I should be in a Jane Austen novel. Sappy and sentimental, maybe, but would you expect anything less from an English Literature graduate?
There is a certain catharsis which comes with writing down the mediocre events of the day on paper, knowing someone else will read it. You get to know someone in so much more depth that you can get through text. My friend and I still send all the most important things to each other over messenger, so the little things are left to write up. It gives me a break from staring at my screen all day: a slow down, a forced meditation - the break we all truly need from a culture of click bait and fake news, and it’s nice to just reflect on the simple, little things. It returns me to a nostalgia that was never actually mine, the closest I had to ever writing a proper letter to a friend was sending those pesky chain letters to my friends as a kid, or letters to Santa.
I feared getting started for quite some time. The romantic in me cares way too much about what other people think, and I often get frozen taking no action at all because I’m too busy overthinking it. I spent ages looking at letter writing kits and pretty stickers I could decorate them with, but everything was proving too expensive (why is a pack of letter paper and envelopes £20? And it’ll take two weeks to deliver? I’d rather overthink it and spend another month waiting to get started thanks). I eventually just decided to start drafting out what I wanted to write on scrap pieces of paper, and these ended up being the ones I sent. There’s something much more personal about using scrap paper, using a first draft - getting to see the hesitation of the writer, the differences in handwriting as they come back to their writing over the course of the day, getting larger as they get more tired, and then hastily trying to squeeze it in at the end of the page or a line.
My letters were received with much love; I’d usually receive a message as soon as it arrived, and then a response a few days later in the post. I wrote poems for each of my friends. I’ve always been much better at expressing myself in writing, and I could just be much more candid than I could ever be in person. It has really become a labour of love of the past few months as I have put more and more effort into each letter, each word. I learnt how to embroider a patch for one of my friends to add to her denim jacket and added a (rather crap) origami crane to another friend’s letter. Ultimately, handwritten letters are just a really great way to show people they’re in your thoughts during this time, and to let them know you care and are willing to put in the work.
Written by Sasha Smith
Sasha is a poet currently completing her Master's degree in English. Check out her poetry on Instagram @sashayawaypoetry