The Beauty of Handwritten Letters

I have three boxes that I’ll will never throw away. One is handwritten letters between Troy and me from when we were dating and newly married.. One is letters from my niece that we started sending when she was small — the kind that start with round, uncertain handwriting and over the years turns into something unmistakably hers. The third is a mix: to and from my children, aunts, uncles, old friends- just precious words.

The beauty of writing by hand

There is something different about a handwritten letter. A text lands in the same stream as forty other texts. An email sits between a sale notification and something from the dentist’s office. A letter, though — a letter had to be thought about, written, folded, addressed, stamped, and carried somewhere on purpose. Somebody was thinking of you specifically.

I came across a wonderful piece recently by Ruth Gaskovski, who writes at School of the Unconformed, called “Letters: How (and why) to write for an audience of one.”

Mass communication is efficient.

A letter is the opposite of efficient, and that’s exactly what makes it so special.

Gaskovski points out that as digital “connection” has multiplied, it hasn’t actually made us any closer. The sheer volume of personal information aimed at no one in particular is part of what’s driving the loneliness so many people feel now, even while our phones stay full. Her answer is almost embarrassingly simple. If a flood of messages “for everyone by everyone” is the problem, the fix is to turn it upside down: to connect with anyone, you have to start with someone. Not everyone. Someone.

A group text and a sealed envelope with one name on it can hold nearly identical words and still do two entirely different things. In  Why Letter Writing is Essential to the Good Life Michael de Sapio calls it “a gift of self,” and that’s exactly right — you can’t delete a sentence and pretend you never thought it once the ink’s dry.

Because you know one specific person is going to hold that paper in their hand and read it with nothing else competing for their attention, every line ends up carrying more weight than it ever could in an inbox.

My dad for years would send me the occasional letter. He’d find an article in the newspaper he thought I should read — something practical or business related — cut it out, and mail it in an envelope with a few lines scratched on a torn-off sheet from a yellow legal pad. No occasion. Just I saw this and thought you should too. I still have those envelopes. You don’t need a way with words to hand someone a gift of self. But seeing those four sentences in handwriting I’d know anywhere, was indeed a gift.

What writing by hand does to your brain

There’s science behind why a letter feels different to write, not just to receive. Researchers at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology wired up 36 university students with high-density EEG caps and had them write the same words by hand and by keyboard. Handwriting lit up a pattern of connectivity across the brain’s memory and learning regions that the researchers described as crucial for encoding new information. Typing is efficient. Handwriting is apparently where the actual thinking happens — the hand shaping each letter seems to slow the brain down just enough to let a thought finish forming before it’s committed to the page.

This goes along with something I’ve noticed for years: I think more clearly with a pen in my hand than I do at a keyboard. Fewer thoughts, and better ones.

A little history of handwritten letters

“Recent surveys findings indicate that 40% of Gen Z has difficulty writing by hand, and an even higher percentage cannot read cursive writing.” ~Ruth Gaskovski

C.S. Lewis famously hated typing — he thought the clacking of the keys “interfered with the creative process…and dulled the writer’s appreciation of the rhythms and cadences of the English language,” so he wrote everything by hand with a dip pen and ink instead. J.R.R. Tolkien spent over twenty years writing his children illustrated letters “from Father Christmas” — real correspondence, kept and treasured, that eventually became a published book. And handwriting analysts who’ve studied the letters of people like Georgia O’Keeffe and Michelangelo describe O’Keeffe’s script as full of “charisma, confidence, and a lot of emotional energy,” and Michelangelo’s as “artistic, almost musical.” Your handwriting has always been telling who you are.

A few lines worth keeping

Michael De Sapio wrote that “writing letters is essential to a civilized life. “

In an 1876 guide called How to Write Letters, by J. Willis Westlake wrote that most writing carries “the restraint induced by the feeling that a thousand eyes are peering over the writer’s shoulder,” but that letters are different — written “when the mind is as it were in dressing-gown and slippers — free, natural, active, perfectly at home, and with all the fountains of fancy, wit, and sentiment in full play.”

Dressing-gown-and-slippers writing. That’s what I’m talking about — the one kind of writing where nobody’s watching over your shoulder except the one person it’s actually for.

Begin sending handwritten letters again

For me personally, I want the paper to be part of the occasion so I’ve long collected beautiful cards and stationary to have at the ready for my “gown and slippers” letter writing. I keep them in a dedicated box similar to this one, along with favorite writing pens, stamps and my address book (yes….an actual book 😊). Custom letterpress stationery is a small extravagance, but it’s the kind that changes how you write. When the paper itself feels considered, you slow down and write with intention. I highly recommend checking out Honey Bespoke for all your stationary goods- a woman owned business out of Houston, Texas who understands the paper as well as thee moments behind it.

How do you feel about writing letters by hand? If you want more inspiration to do so, I highly recommend reading the entire piece by Ruth Gaskovski on Substack at School of the Unconformed, called “Letters: How (and why) to write for an audience of one.” You’ll find it and lots of other gems worth your time there.

Do you have a box tucked away somewhere of handwritten letters you’ve kept? Let me know in the comments or over on Facebook.

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Thanks for reading!