Seedplanter’s Porch

I‘m going to ask you to step away from Twitter, Tagfoot, Facebook, LinkedIn, and the other social networks that have stapled your brain to the Internet. Let’s travel back in time to the days before e-mail, when the arrival of that little postal truck meant more than bills and catalogs.

Do you remember searching through the pile of mail for a letter with a recognizable address, or handwriting you could identify right away? There it was–a friend who hadn’t written in ages. If you were lucky, you might even receive two or three letters in one delivery.

Some people wrote letters on plain lined notebook paper. Others, like my friend Kathy, used crinkly pastel paper with a fancy design running across the top of the page.  My aunt’s letters always smelled like roses. I read my letters slowly, the way I read a good book when I reach the very last chapter.

My newest lens is about communication–how our words can enrich lives and deepen relationships. It’s a tribute to paper letters…nostalgic but not sappy. No Kleenex needed this time.

I hope In Praise of Paper Letters leaves you with warm, sweet memories of people you used to correspond with by postal–a grandparent? best friend? elementary school pen pal?

Who knows, you might even try your hand at writing one–just for the shock effect, of course. I’m thinking along those lines myself. Might write my sister a real letter. She lives twelve miles from me, but it would give her a good laugh, and I know she’d probably save it.  She’s sentimental that way.

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We’ve all been there, wondering what our next lens topic should be. Yesterday I felt mired in the mundane, feeling like no matter what I wrote about, it would fall flat.

Then my memory bank took over; it’s the storehouse tucked away in the deeper recesses of the brain, the one with the creaky door and ivy growing over the windows? I turned the doorknob on that room when I created Recipes for Life recently, too. (*A big THANKS goes to GrowWear for reviewing it at her Squidoo Lens Review blog. Mimi’s doing a wonderful service for lensmasters…visit her, please!)

The more I pondered, the more it warmed my heart and soul. And I realized all over again what a pure gift it is to be able to think back and recall not only events, but the sensations surrounding them. Do you know what I mean?

Can you imagine, not feeling connected to the past? Not being able to remember family events, family stories, and faces of loved ones you treasure?

Through the years, I’ve felt a certain void when it comes to the topic of grandparents. My dad lost his father at a young age, so of course I never knew him.  My mom’s father died when I was 19. I miss him a lot. As for grandmothers, my dad’s mother died of cancer before my parents ever met. So I had one grandma, made some sweet early memories with her, then lost her when I was four. She had a sudden heart attack and my days of visiting Grandma ended, just like that.

Maybe that’s why A Quilt Story leapt out at me, begging to be told. I had planned to share the story someday. For the past four years it has been nagging at me, but it was too painful to write about until now.

If I had a simple recipe for this lens, it would be this:

Take 1 musty old trunk, stashed in a corner of a damp garage.  Add to it a surprising discovery that might never have taken place, had 24 hours passed. Blend with a secret question my mother whispered to me during a visit several months later. Sift in measured portions of love, loss, and rekindled joy. Mix well.

Curious? I hope so.

Visit A Quilt Story: Voices from the Great Depression.  If you anticipate that this will be “just another sweet quilting story,” you might be disappointed. This one runs a bit deeper than that.

Please let me know how it affects you. I’m interested in hearing.

New to Squidoo? Make your own lens today!

*Image by -Chad Johnson via Flickr