so you wanna bring back snail mail
a not-so-comprehensive guide to sending letters
When your grandchildren ask about the good old days will you have anything to show them? Will you have a flash drive lying around with your old photo dumps? Forget the pictures— what archive will you have of the conversations? Our grandparents would send love letters back and forth, and all we have is a digital graveyard of Hinge conversations. Our entire lives are being pushed online, and with that push we run the risk of losing one of the most beautiful things about being human: receiving mail.
Think about the feeling you get when you see a letter in your mailbox: Untouchably wonderful. Something with a stamp, scuffed from transit, addressed to you in the lopsided way only a human can do. Bliss.
Think about the feeling of receiving an email: A lurch in your stomach. Otherworldly amounts of dread. It just isn’t the same.
Music sounds better on vinyl, so does it track that words sound better on paper?
I hate how digital our world has become. I hate owning zero of my favorite movies and only being able to visit them via an Amazon account. There’s something so visceral about actually holding the things you love in your hands instead of trapping them in the Cloud. One of my favorite movies, The Worst Person in the World has a line about owning VHS tapes that has stuck with me over the years.
AKSEL: I grew up in a time when culture was passed along through objects. They were interesting because we could live among them.
When I look at my bookshelves I appreciate the fact that the stories I read live with me. The characters are there in the pages waiting for me to crack their spines and bring them back to life at any moment. Whenever I get a letter, or a birthday card, I hang onto the envelope and tuck them between those books. I like this better than leaving them in a memory box somewhere because this way they’re a part of my every day.
They bring me to another sense of place and time the same way the books do. They’re a portal to another world, which is something your phone can never hope to accomplish. Your phone is not a portal, it’s a vessel. It’s a hollow drum. When I graze my fingers against my mother’s handwriting she’s in the room with me, but when I scroll through my phone I am waiting at a bus stop for her to arrive.
I want to live among my objects. I want printed tickets and to keep all my receipts. I want to get so many letters my collection makes a dent in my copy of Emma.
Letter Writing 101
If you’re saying ‘but I have nothing to write about’ I want you to shush yourself. Writing a letter is not standing at a podium declaring you are important to the world, it is intimately and securely telling one very specific reader what you want them to know. It can be as mundane as the things you ate for breakfast this week. As you set course for the snail mail lifestyle you must know that you do not need to be an expert in writing. You need to be an expert in sincerity.
If you’re looking for an easy introduction I recommend taking stock of the addresses you know. Maybe you even compile them in a little notebook instead of having them float in your phone somewhere. Think of who on this list would be delighted to receive a letter from you (spoiler all of them) and go ahead and write one. A few years ago I sent five or six of my friends just because letters. I had been to their apartments and therefore knew their addresses and that was enough of an occasion. Some of the letters were just a drawing, some included a story or a compliment. It was fun to send something for the sake of sending it, and now when I visit them I get to see the thing I wrote hanging from their fridge.
I was recently sent a copy of Rachel Syme’s new book Syme’s Letter Writer, and I highly recommend it to anyone wanting to beef up their letter writing skills. It gives you a history of the pastime, ideas for the modern letter writer, and even educates on advanced letter writing flourishes like perfumed envelopes and pressed flowers.
My personal favorite part of sending letters is decorating the envelope. I like to draw something on the inside sleeve so when you open it you get a little bonus surprise.
Securing Your Stationary
Before you begin your love affair with the written word you’re going to need a few accessories. One of the best things I’ve done for myself is carry a tiny notebook, a truly pocket-sized one that can always be on your person. It’s much less daunting than a larger journal, and once you get in the habit of reaching for it you’ll find it fills up quick. I also love a Moleskine as it has an interior pocket to hold onto whatever keepsakes suit your fancy. I usually fill mine with receipts, stickers, and the occasional physical ticket stub. Once I completed my red Moleskine though, I opted for a Midori, and I really love the horizontal line to separate different ideas on the same page.
I purchased mine from Goods for the Study here in New York, but I highly encourage you to check out whatever your local stationary store is. I always look for the good stationary stores when I’m on vacation. The best stationary store in London (and possibly the entire world) is Choosing Keeping. Here you can indulge in vintage inspired scrapbook paper, hardback composition ledgers, and as many accessories as you can shake a stick at.
When I was in France I went to L’ecritoire Paris. I bought a pen, vintage inspired labels, and a few postcards to commemorate my trip. There is something about a stationary store that gets to the real heart of a city, and all that blank paper contains so much hope and possibility.
For my personal letter writing needs I have a combination of cotton handmade paper and stationary sets from Crown Mill Paper Company. On it I’ve written letters to loved ones, created custom menus for dinner parties, and doodled pictures to gift my friends. In an absolute dream world I would have my own custom stationary, or at least Keepsake would, but until then I’ll happily use their powder blue option.
Shop a curated shelf of my picks here.
Honoring Your Inner Snail
Instant gratification is a pair of golden handcuffs. If you can search any piece of information and do it on 2x speed, you will miss out on the slow moments. While the world around you moves at warpspeed, lean into analog to slow the digestion of your media diet.
There is a snail within you that loves when you lay in bed late. It loves when you take a meandering walk around your neighborhood and loves that it took you six months to finish that book. It’s okay to take your time with things. Snail mail is a lesson is patience, and good things come to those who wait.
xo,
Julianna
Interested in sending letters? The Keepsake Pen Pal Program is open for new submissions. Don’t want to wait for the form? Introduce yourself in the comments below and see if you can find a new friend to send a letter to.
So I stole this pen. I don’t remember who I stole it from or when. I just remember being delighted by how wonderful it felt writing with it. Jet black ink, smooth glide. It’s been a couple of months now. I’ve began journaling daily just to use the pen, and felt back in love with writing by hand. Completely different experience compared to typing. Like painting with language. Anyway, the pen is Pilot v-ball 0.5 if anyone’s interested.
Feeling incredibly excited at the thought of sending a friend who lives in the same city a just because letter. Thank you for this!