Keeping Up with Correspondence

Our taste in movies varies. We enjoy action flicks, fantasy epics, romantic comedies, historical fiction, documentaries, and other genres according to what strikes our fancy. For example, we recently watched four different movies based on three Jane Austin novels: Emma, Pride and Prejudice (two different versions), and Sense and Sensibility. All enjoyable for their stories, character development, and insights into human nature. They also showed how people lived in those times and places, although I wonder how they found so many production locations without any power lines or the occasional airplane in the background.

As we watched these period pieces, I noticed for the first time how often the characters sat at a desk to write letters to family members or friends. Maybe some of it was business-related, but mostly it seemed to be personal. And with no internet, telephone, or telegraph, how else were they to stay in touch? Smoke signals? Carrier pigeons? Wrong place, wrong time. In fact, it even looked like some of the more well-to-do characters blocked out time each day to write letters and read incoming mail. Keeping up with their correspondence, as they might say.

Although attention to correspondence was a minor detail in the story, it struck a nerve with me. Hand-written letters are few and far between today, and we seem to communicate mostly by email, messaging, or other electronic means. We feel guilty about the screen time involved in corresponding by computer, but maybe our guilt is misplaced. After all, the time spent communicating on line with family, friends, and colleagues is simply the modern version of keeping up with correspondence. And it is nice to stay in touch!