When was the last time you received a letter? I’m not talking about the latest fund raising appeal from Greenpeace or the water bill. I mean an actual handwritten letter. When did you last write a letter to someone? I bet it’s been a while for  both.

The ubiquity of email and texting has relegated the handwritten personal letter to the dustbin of history alongside house calls from your doctor and pre-dawn visits from the milkman. In our increasingly cold and impersonal world, letter writing is just one more thing that I mourn the passing of. A couple of years ago, I decided I would singlehandedly try and revive the lost art of letter writing. I sent long personal letters to seven close friends. I recieved one reply. Of course that hasn’t always been the case.

In the spring of 1979, a close friend of mine and I drove cross-country to relocate to California from New Jersey. With our minimum wage Tower Records salaries we were barely able to eek out a living. During our first three months here, owning a telephone was a luxury that we could not afford. We’d use the corner phone booth (ahhh phone booths, another dustbin relic!) to call our families on the east coast…collect! So for me, letter writing then was a lifeline, a way for me to keep in touch with those who I’d left behind. I worked mostly 4pm to midnight shifts at Tower so I’d come home late, smoke a little pot, listen to the late, great Americana radio station KFAT and write letters into the wee hours of the morning. It was an exhilarating and liberating period of my life but also sad and lonely at times too. I’d fill yellow legal pads with words; my hopes, dreams, and fears pouring out through my fingertips and onto the page. Writing is such a tactile experience. I love the feel of a pen as the nib drags across the paper leaving a trail of blue in its wake. Writing a letter requires time and patience, both being in short supply nowadays. Letter writing is the ultimate in delayed gratification. If I send a letter to someone on the east coast and they reply immediately, the fastest turnaround time I could hope for would be a week. The ways we communicate now often require instant replies. Letter writing also requires thought and a basic understanding of spelling and grammar. My Pilot G-2 .07mm pen does not contain spell check or auto correct. It’s up to me to catch my mistakes and to correct them. Every essay that I post on this blog begins as a handwritten piece.

During my seminal first years in California, I wrote countless letters to family and friends. If you could arrange them chronologically, the trajectory of my life at that time could be traced through those letters. There’s an old box in our garage which contains hundreds of replies I recieved during that time. Every once in a while I’ll dig that box out and rummage through it. Each one of those letters is unique. The sizes, shapes and colors of the envelopes are all different. There are so many cool stamps and postmarks too.  My mom used to send me a few brightly colored leaves from our backyard trees every autumn. A letter from an old girlfriend still retains the faint scent of patchouli oil. With each letter, you get a little piece of the person who wrote it. Emails? They’re nothing but 1’s and 0’s, meant to be read and deleted. I doubt anyone prints out emails and saves them in a box.

It’s an uphill battle trying to retain a little of the personal touch in a world that grows more virtual every day. So writing letters is my way of pushing back; a small, personal rebellion against tweets and texts and automated voicemail. Keep your eyes on the mailbox, there just may be a letter from me tucked in there between the bills and junk mail.

Since beginning this blog earlier in the year, a recurring theme of mine has been finding solace in nature during uncertain times. Here’s my latest take.

The only human made sounds I can hear are the occasional rumbling of a plane taking off from nearby Charles Schultz Airport, otherwise this tranquil eddy along the bank of the Russian River is as quiet as can be. Whenever I come here I’m amazed at the absence of human made sounds, especially since I’m only 15 minutes away from the 101 freeway and tens of thousands of other people.

The rasping chit chit of a Stellar’s Jay occasionally punctuates the stillness. A Belted Kingfisher chatters past me on its way upriver. The distant kree-kraw of a crow is like a rumor in the distance. An enormous Great Blue Heron flies by as silent as a dream. A few moments ago a grey squirrel flew through the trees above, letting me know in no uncertain terms that I was a visitor in its home. The piercing call of a Northern Flicker echoes through the forest from across the river, a peaceful clarion call reminding all who care to listen that autumn is here for a while. A tiny Bewick’s Wren, white eye streaks like a mask and tail feathers pointing straight up offers a chipper greeting from its perch on a willow branch.

Silence is the blank canvas upon which all of these animals leave their brushstrokes. Their sounds, each one unique, are the hues that combine to create this tranquil aural masterpiece. It’s like a Monet painting for the ears. In order to “hear” this painting I’ve got to tune into its frequency and find the silence within myself, the blank canvas so to speak. It is so soothing coming to this place where there are only whispers. It’s an opportunity to recharge my batteries and a reminder that there are still refuges of silence and beauty in the world.

An enormous fish jumps and temporarily rouses me from my reverie. I just miss seeing its body but I know it’s big because the splash is so loud. I turn my head just in time to watch the ripples spread silently towards the shore, one by one by one; a broad stroke followed by ever lighter touches of the brush. Also adding its brushstrokes to this canvas now is a river otter, sleek and shining, its brown body glistens in the afternoon sun. Every few yards up it pops for a breath of air and a look around. As it heads downriver each of its dives creates a curlicue of sound, another color in the palette. A pair of ducks, Hornbilled Grebes, glide across the river’s mirror-like surface. Perfectly white butterflies dip and spin against a background of green plants growing on the far bank. At the center of it all is the river, flowing almost imperceptibly to the sea. These last few sounds are too faint for the human ear to perceive but they nevertheless are contributing their subtle tones to this masterwork.

Unlike the traditional painting made with brush and pigment this picture is unconstrained by canvas and frame. It’s an ongoing creation, a boundless work in progress. There was no beginning, hopefully there will be no end.