Alas, National Letter Writing Month has arrived! Commissioned in 2001, by way of the  US Postal Service’s natural support for letters, letter writing and all things hand delivered. April is nationally declared an opportune time to embrace the connectedness as well as the intimacy handwritten letters and notes.

From crafting a breezy letter to family and friends — residing both near and far — expressing an excitement toward springtime steadily approaching, to an earnest ‘thank you’ note for your local postal workers themselves, this month serves as a reminder that correspondence is powerful. It’s able to capture gratitude; it’s capable of illustrating empathy. Its recipients have the unique ability to experience aspects of its delight a text, email, or online post simply cannot deliver: seeing one’s name calligraphed, tracing the liner of the envelope with an index finger, smelling the musk of ink-clad letters. “Blessed be letters!” essayist and novelist Donald Grant Mitchell exclaims in his book Reveries of a Bachelor, “… write it down; stamp it; burn it in the ink. There it is, a true soul-print.”

Not required to be a “soul-print,” as Mitchell remarks, handwritten letters and notes are, at the least, though, a gift — a glimpsed extension of you —  that reflect consideration,  gentitily, and sheer kindness individuals within your life so deserve. We encourage you to take time this month, amidst awakening flora and warming temperatures, to pen your handwritten letters and notes.

– Margot D.