The joy of handwritten letters
And other reflections on slowing down
Those of you who have met me at events for Stranger in the Desert these past few months know that I love all things old-school — notebooks, train journeys, family archives, photos on film. Indeed, many of you signed a physical guestbook that has passed through the hands of nearly a thousand readers interested in seeking deeper connections with each other, and with our ancestors.
In between live events — and I have many more coming up this month, see below — I’ve been trying to live life slowly, and more deliberately. On my way back from a talk at Duke University last month, I took the Amtrak Silver Star, which runs from Miami to New York. At the many bookstores I’ve visited, people have generously given me their favorite books as gifts, so I’ve been discovering new authors like Mohsin Hamid (Exit West, and The Reluctant Fundamentalist) thanks to Tom in Cambridge, Mass., Hector Abad (Oblivion) thanks to Laura in Miami, and Carlos Fallon (A Variety of Fallon) thanks to Miguel in Miami as well.
I’ve also started writing handwritten letters again, to friends and family near and far. This was something I began doing four years ago, because of the pandemic. The first letter I received was dated March 31, 2020. It was from a close childhood friend, turned college roommate, with whom I regularly keep in touch via text, WhatsApp audios, and phone calls, as most people do.
“The sun has set on our 15th day of quarantine/social distancing,” he wrote then (and I get goosebumps reading it again now, thinking about all that has happened since). He’d alerted me that the letter was coming, of course, in a text message. After many days of nonstop Zoom calls for work, the last thing he wanted to do was look at another screen to catch up. He thought that writing a letter could be a fun creative exercise to break up the monotony.
So I wrote back. And then I wrote to another friend and another, and then there came a time when not a week went by without multiple letters to reply to.
I’ve written about birdfeeders, good movies, and family; I’ve read friends’ letters about fishing and homesickness and Gabriel García Márquez’s Love in the Time of Cholera, in which the young Florentino Ariza writes thousands of love letters during an epidemic in Colombia. In most of these exchanges, there seems to exist this unspoken code of slightly formal, performative language. It lends an extra level of thoughtfulness, of intimacy, of connection, even while writing about the seemingly mundane happenings of everyday life.
Yet it is precisely the simple joys of the mundane and the everyday that seems to keep us going in these times of so much uncertainty. In that way, I’ve found writing letters to be wonderful in the simplest of ways — sitting down at the table, far from the phone and computer, with only a sheet or two of blank white paper in front of me. In return, I’m gifted a far more interesting way of remembering the world, and our collective path through it: a patchwork of pages sent to me by others, dated and signed.
It’s been deeply comforting to think that whatever I am writing will soon be in the hands of someone else. I’ve sent letters as far as Baghdad, Seoul, and Bogotá, and as near as only a few blocks from my door. Some of the handwriting I’ve seen is, like mine, laughably illegible. Other letters are aesthetic works of art.
As I have written more extensively about letter-writing over these past few years, I have made new friendships, too. One day, in late 2020, this note appeared in my inbox from a reader named Charlotte: “I have just finished handwriting a response to your National Geographic essay, ‘A Letter To My Generation.’ If you have a mailing address I could send this letter to, that would be fantastic! If you don't, I understand, and I can type it up and send it in an email instead. I know that you understand the beauty of letter writing, and hope I get the chance to send the letter.”
Charlotte’s missive arrived two months later, all the way from New Zealand, where she lives, and we have remained in touch ever since, almost exclusively through our intercontinental letters. I can recognize her handwriting — and in a way, her voice on paper — better than that of some people I’ve known forever.
Letters give us a slow, unhindered way of working through our anxieties, thoughts, and emotions during a period of profound change. They give us a break from our screens and help us mark the passage of time in a world where time seems to move differently now.
In that sense, there are plenty of reasons to start writing letters if you don’t already — not least because there is something to be said for slowing down. “When I got your letter, the first thing I wanted to do was text you a picture, but I quickly caught myself,” another childhood friend wrote me in those very early days. “What an affront to letter-writing that would have been!”
I smiled as I pulled out a blank sheet to start my response. I like to think I’ll keep this up for as long as I can, or at least as long as someone is willing to write me back.
All the best,
Jordan -
Join me for one of my upcoming book events in May:
May 2 at 7:30pm - New York City: Bibliotheque (SoHo) - Tickets Required (a very special conversation with Megha Majumdar, my former books editor at Catapult, who helped launch my career)
May 6 at 7:30pm ET - Zoom hosted by Princeton Alumni Association - Free RSVP
May 9 at 6:00pm - New York City: The Graduate Center at CUNY - Free RSVP
May 13 at 7:00pm UK / 2:00pm ET - Zoom hosted by Jewish Renaissance - Free RSVP
And an appearance at the American Museum of Natural History (NYC):
On Saturday, May 11, at 12:00pm, I’ll be interviewing the director Joe Houlberg Silva onstage at the Margaret Mead Film Festival about his moving documentary Ozogoche.
Description:
“Many in the Ozogoche Lake Region of Ecuador feel pulled to migrate north in spite of the enormous risks associated with the journey. In Ozogoche, filmmaker Joe Houlberg Silva draws a parallel between human and avian voyages and shows the annual migration of the mysterious “Cuvivi” sandpiper bird to the remote Andean lakes. Don’t miss this poignant story of cultural identity, trust, and the profound beauty of the Ecuadorian highlands.”
Tickets: https://www.amnh.org/explore/margaret-mead-festival
It's sad that letterwriting is now seen as a chore! Receiving a handwritten letter was a great feeling when I was younger. That's why I always sent postcards to my kids when I traveled, so they can feel the same excitement.
Dear Jordan,
I am a relatively new member to SubStack and am happy to have stumbled across your page and work, because I am not new to writing hand written letters. I traveled the world for 10 years semi-constantly and wrote and mailed letters to a pen pal from nearly every page of my passport. I compiled and curated those letters into a book called Paper Planes, and I would love to send you a copy of one. I imagine that with you being constantly in motion it may be hard for a physical book to catch up with you, but I genuinely think that we have shared many thoughts over the years and would love to connect with you human to human.
If there is a way for a book to reach you, please let me know I would be honored to share a copy.
Sincerely,
Ry