Handwritten Notes – A dying art form

I have a love affair with period drama. You know, Sense and Sensibility, Howards End and most recently Downton Abby. (If you’ve not heard of Downton Abby – rent Season One from Netflix. You’ll be glad you did. And Season 2 is currently being shown on PBS on Sunday nights and it was just released on DVD, so there is plenty of time to catch up).

There is a lot of letter writing in period dramas, lovely handwritten notes, eloquently articulated, on creamy thick paper before being precisely folded and sealed with wax. The letters are delivered on silver trays by the footman, while the recipient drinks tea and eats little cakes.

I have come full circle with my appreciation for hand-written notes. But it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to conclude that hand-written notes are a rarity in contemporary society. The explosion of social media has all but eradicated hand-written notes from the norms of our culture. I get it. I do. Email is fast. It’s quick. It’s easy. It doesn’t require a note card or a stamp much less remembering to get the note to the mailbox in a timely fashion. Let’s face it. Our lives don’t include the footman making deliveries on silver platters.

There are two events that have stirred my fondness for handwritten notes.

1. My disdain of “thank you notes” via facebook which you can read about here.
2. I received one, an honest to goodness handwritten note. An actual thank you that someone wrote on a paper card and mailed to me. And gee, it was nice to get something in mail that wasn’t a bill. I was touched the sender would take the time to write me something. And then mail it. With a stamp. Maybe it’s because I do know we all lead busier, more hectic lives and she didn’t take the easier way out.

So my goal for this year (notice how I’m not calling it a resolution since resolutions are dumb and almost always fail) is to write more handwritten notes. Because notes are nice and significantly more personal than an email typed in Arial 12pt font. Maybe it will prompt a resurgence of footman and tea drinking.

One can hope.