The Value of Letter Writing

I owe you an apology.
I owe you a thank you.
I owe you an explanation.
I owe you the truth.
I owe you respect.
Can you help me?
I love you.
I miss you.
I'm leaving.
Why did you leave me?

And so I'm writing to you.

There are so many different kinds of letters that I've written and received over the years. I remember running to the mailbox as a child and as a teenager, glancing quickly through the stack to find my name, immediately turning the envelope to identify the sender-a girlfriend, boyfriend, crush, or my twelve-years-older brother who often lived elsewhere-and then running to a quiet place where I could read and re-read my letter in private. As I got older, I delighted in reading the epistolary exchanges between Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung, Ernest Hemingway and Georgia O'Keefe, and the letters of Antonin Artaud and Albert Camus. I enjoyed learning from Peggy Penn about the therapeutic benefits of letter-writing, and from the Hindu priest Dandapani about how writing by hand imbues letters with one's personality.