Somewhere in your home there's probably a box. A shoebox at the back of a wardrobe, a biscuit tin, a drawer that doesn't quite close. Inside: letters, cards, notes. From a pen pal, a first love, a grandmother, a friend who moved away. You haven't opened it in years.
And yet you'd never throw it away. You've carried it from apartment to apartment. If there were a fire, it might be one of the first things you'd grab.
Why do we keep letters we never reread?
Because they're proof
A letter is evidence that someone thought of you, sat down and took the time to write. In a life full of fleeting messages, it's tangible proof that you mattered to someone at a particular moment. You don't need to reread it to know it's there.
Because they hold a version of us
Old letters are addressed to who we were: a teenager, a young woman in her first apartment, someone grieving, someone in love. Keeping them is a way of keeping that person too.
Because handwriting is a presence
A letter carries something of the person who wrote it: the shape of their letters, the pressure of their pen, a crossed-out word. When the writer is gone, that handwriting can feel almost like a voice.
Because the future might need them
We keep them for a day we can't predict: a moment of nostalgia, a need for comfort, a child who'll ask one day what their grandmother was like.
A gentle invitation
You don't have to reread them. But one quiet evening, you might open the box, take out a single letter, and hold it without reading. Notice the paper, the handwriting, the memory it brings. That's enough. Then put it back, a little more cherished.
Letters for the box
The Letter & Magazine subscription sends you a letter and a postcard every month, with a meditation and a story about art inside, plus a seasonal issue of "(meditating) On Art". Letters made to be kept, even if you never reread them.
Remember to take as much time as you need, and meet me at the next one.
Love, Evi