Hand-Made Words

THE POWER OF WORDS
Tis a strange mystery, the power of words!
Life is in them, and death. A word can send
The crimson colour hurrying to the cheek.
Hurrying with many meanings; or can turn
The current cold and deadly to the heart.
Anger and fear are in them; grief and joy
Are on their sound; yet slight, impalpable:--
A word is but a breath of passing air.
~Letitia Elizabeth Landon

There is a hilarious scene with Sarah Jessica Parker as single New Yorker Carrie Bradshaw in the "Sex in the City" HBO series that involves her waking up to a goodbye Post-It note from her boyfriend stuck to her computer. "I"m sorry," the note reads. "I just can't." And with that Carrie is left with the end of a relationship: No why, what, just an end. She spends the day asking everyone she meets, Have you heard of this? Can you believe this? What she is really thinking is, Is that all a relationship means any more- a Post-It?

Recently more than a romance ended with a text. A colleague in the publishing industry found out she was being "merged"out of a job in a mass email from corporate headquarters. Another friend interviewed by email, and then Skype, for a position across the continent. These days, entire lives are conducted through short, abbreviated, directive messaging. Dating services, job recruiting, email distributions, list serves, group texts, ccs and blind copies... all short-cuts to important points of connection. Efficient, yes. But even in our personal lives? I am reminded of Meg Ryan's character, a children's bookstore owner named Kathleen Kelly, remarking in "You've Got Mail" that she hates it when people excuse something egregious with a trite "It isn't personal." She asks, "What is it then, if not personal? It's personal to me." By her definition communication between two persons is, personal.

I find myself wondering, don't our friends and loved ones deserve a hand-made approach? Chefs know slow cooking is synonymous with savory. Diplomacy is still conducted face to face; most actual dating too. Shouldn't we savor communications regarding important news? Be willing to invest the time, share, collaborate, chat? Even when it's bad news and our role is to offer support or pick up the phone and offer a spoken hug?

I don't believe modern relationships suddenly slipped lightweight on us. Rather, I think we've shifted as a contemporary culture toward an aggravating new "bubble effect" in our personal exchanges. Abbreviated messaging that expresses itself in some combination of rushed, lazy, disengaged, or terse. Conversations take time, and connection, opening to spontaneous and intimate exchange. An investment of attention, in other words. The reason we treasure handwritten thank you notes and invitations is the exact same reason so many of us now default to email templates. Time. We can do more with less invested if we email, text, vm, DM, tweet or post to Facebook. And yet that efficiency sucks the intimacy and specialness out of our entire message. Most of us still believe that significant events - news of a death, engagements, new jobs and lost jobs, babies, trouble with the law or great awards - are all things best shared in direct conversation. The visit, the telephone call, any spontaneous back and forth expression of emotional support or delight is the very stuff that makes us communal humans want to share our news in the first place.

So my thought today is, pick up the phone. Make a coffee date. Walk down the street and spend ten minutes with an old friend. Write a long note and post it, the old fashioned way. The value of almost everything lies beyond the how or why. That smile in your voice? Hand-made.