Is Letter Writing a Lost Art?

I’m just now recovering from my shock that cursive script is no longer taught in most elementary schools. And, I have learned that those who do not learn to write script cannot read it either, as if it were a foreign language.

I own a family treasure, my parents’ fervent courtship letters exchanged in 1943. My dad wrote in a deliberate, ornate, vertical hand. He edited carefully with his Parker fountain pen, sending my mom letters with the cross-outs intact. My mom wrote in a graceful, slanted Palmer Method script, moving forward on the page with speed, confidence—and no corrections.

Will I need to write my own love letter in block print or on the computer — and will that delete the romantic heart of it?

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When I was in sixth grade in Linden, New Jersey, Mr. Kelly gave us a weekly world history quiz. Various classmates “auditioned” during September to write out the tests on the blackboard. I don’t remember if I was voted in or chosen by the teacher, but it became my Friday afternoon task to put those five questions on the board — quickly but legibly.

I reached to the very top of the green board with my yellow piece of chalk to begin writing Question #1 straight across in my pleasingly rounded, even, vertically oriented script. I felt special as an eleven-year old with this immense responsibility.

Budding writer that I was, I composed individually tailored thank you notes to the giver, starting with my Bat Mitzvah gifts at age thirteen. I developed cramps in my fingers but eventually wrote dozens of notes to all my relatives and my parents’ friends.

My childhood friend M, a talented artist and photographer, tried to master texting and email at the urging of her children. She struggled with outrageous typos and messed up or misdirected communications, belittling herself constantly. I had this epiphany—why don’t we correspond by mail like we did as teens? I don’t know if she’s happy online yet—I doubt it—but she includes a bonus, one of her clever illustrations at the end of each letter.

I recall how one of my husband’s loyal customers sent him cards and letters over the years to express her delight with his fabulous haircuts. Paul would pin her card on the bulletin board and exclaim, “Someone started a fan club for me!”

After he died in 2013, I found a stack of her “fan-mail” in the beauty shop. She continued to write to me afterwards, always including an amusing account of their conversations while she was in the chair—insisting that she has never found a better hairdresser.

Thank you dear Maggie.

So, is letter writing a lost art?

No form of art should be “lost” or discouraged or put out of business just because something new comes along.

Yes, artists create graphic design on their computer software but still mix colors and apply their brush to canvas. Hollywood produces films and TV series, but these newer media don’t compete with the experience of live theatre. Records, cassettes, CDs, streaming, so far have not replaced musicians performing for an audience in real time.

Who is to say that a new  form of expression should supersede another? There is a place for all. You get my point.

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Now, the visceral feeling of using my arm and my hand as the conduit from the ideas in my head to the paper on my desk enriches the creative process for me. I always save the first handwritten draft of a new piece of writing—where my first thoughts originated and I threw my emotions onto the page—long after I go through endless edits on Microsoft Word.

Once in awhile, I will write a letter with pen and stationery. I keep a stack of colorful notecards on hand, usually from a museum gift shop, and a page of those little gummed, perforated patches of illustrated paper that will launch an envelope anywhere around the country or the world—and finally into the cart of a postal carrier to deliver personally to its destination.

When I receive a letter in the mail from a friend or relative, the world stops for just a few moments. I am alone with the writer who thought of me, savoring every word.

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Postscript: Alabama and Louisiana passed laws in 2016 mandating cursive proficiency in public schools, the latest of 14 states that require cursive. And three years ago, the 1.1 million-student New York City schools, the nation’s largest public school system, encouraged the teaching of cursive to students, generally in the third grade.