With pen in hand and a postage stamp at the ready, how many of us write and send letters—regularly or otherwise? I’ll be the first to admit that, while I write letters, they are more often sent via email. I might have to rethink this.
In grade school, I had a friend who would regularly trade the same card with another friend. Taking turns, the girls would add to and resend the card that they’d been passing between them since one of the girls left our southern Minnesota town (and moved all the way to Minneapolis, no less!). This continued for years.
Their ritual inspired me, and I started something similar when I was in college. At the time, three of my sisters were scattered across the country, and another lived in Mexico. To help keep our sisterly bond thriving, I began The Sister Letter. Once it arrived in her mailbox, each sister had one month to remove her previous letter and add in her newest newsy post, photos or anything of interest and send it off to the next sister, who would repeat the process. This lasted for a few fun years, but marriages, moves and life in general got in the way—sadly.
All of this came back into view when I wrote about Don Shelby and Nancy Nelson. While it’s always an honor to catch up with lake area talent, including this amazingly talented duo, the article was initiated by their return to Chanhassen Dinner Theatres in Love Letters, which tells the tender tale of childhood friends, tethered by way of lifelong correspondence—letters. I won’t spoil the plot, but maybe the play can serve as the impetus for us all to return to letter writing in its most purest, wonderful form—with pen in hand and a postage stamp at the ready.
See you at the post office,
—Renée Stewart-Hester
