small slices of life

"Other letters simply relate the small events that punctuate the passage of time: roses picked at dusk, the laziness of a rainy Sunday, a child crying himself to sleep.  Capturing the moment, these small slices of life, these small gusts of happiness, move me more deeply than all the rest.  A couple of lines or eight pages, a Middle Eastern stamp or a suburban postmark . . . I hoard all these letters like treasure.  One day I hope to fasten them end to end in a half-mile streamer, to float in the wind like a banner raised to the glory of friendship.  It will keep the vultures at bay."

― Jean-Dominique Bauby, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly

I wrote a real old fashioned letter the other day.  You know the kind I'm talking about, on paper, with an envelope, and postage stamp.  It actually felt funny, and strangely nostalgic. Even though I rarely send them, I am dreading the day they are totally obsolete.  I wouldn't consider myself a hoarder, just a romantic.  There are several boxes of correspondence, letters with lovely postal marks, stamps, familiar handwriting sharing small slices of life, that I can't bear to part with.  They are little preserved banners, saluting the glory of love and friendship, the simple things in life. 

image: Mr. Hulings' Rack, 1888, detail, by William Michael Harnett