Oh, this is right up my alley. Love this! My life and character have been changed and molded by the classics. They are so powerful, but they are taught all wrong. You can learn so much about life and people. They are so applicable to our lives.
Love that idea about teaching Pride and Prejudice!
I love writing letters and sending notes and packages through the mail. I still have notes passed between me and a good friend from 7th grade, and I have every letter my mum has ever sent to me, spanning over 40 years. I also every email she's sent to me since email's inception. I also have my mum's diaries (all except 1, which my eldest sister has at the moment), also spanning over 40 years. She was diligent. Family history is precious.
I would love to talk with you about the magic of diaries. Perhaps to interview you on my blog if I could figure out how to do that. My mom encouraged me to write in a diary and to "KEEP WRITING" when her own mother had found her diary and read it to her card playing friends. My mom rarely wrote again but instead gave the gift of it to me. She always use to say, "How do you remember when that happened?"
"Because I'm a diarist."
Would you be interested in discussing the magic of diaries?
My grandmother kept a diary for most of her life and was a prolific letter writer. I wrote letters for years, until email came along 🙄😂 (sarahstyfwriter@gmail.com) - also, you're welcome to cross-post this piece ☺️
Thank you for getting back to me. Do you have her diaries or what happened to them? I've only cross-posted one time. I'm not very good at the business of substack. Yet. Maybe next year!!!
That's cool. The day my grandma died I was going through her desk and found her graduation book at the back of the bottom drawer. In it I saw that she had written for their publication and worked with the other writers. Dictionary game yes, but she never told me she loved to write. She wrote great letters from abroad but it was mostly about the beauty of weather and the busy schedule of going here and there and what they ate. She actually was a very deep thinker. At the end of her life she said to me, "You're lucky you know who you are. I never knew. I was so busy doing what others wanted me to do." My mom said the same thing to me when I asked what she wanted to do. "How should I know? I always did what anyone else wanted me to do." I've felt like such a rebel and now, in my 60s, I'm so damn glad I had that gene and enough permission to listen deep within.
On a personal level, receiving a handwritten letter by post always feels special. I very much enjoy epistolary fiction, and in particular the letters in the Dornford Yates books. I also enjoy looking through old books of example letters for different occasions. Letters in books really give one an insight into how people thought, and also how they expressed things. Great post, Sarah, and I love the note-passing exercise!
Oh, this is right up my alley. Love this! My life and character have been changed and molded by the classics. They are so powerful, but they are taught all wrong. You can learn so much about life and people. They are so applicable to our lives.
Love that idea about teaching Pride and Prejudice!
Yay! I'm glad you can use it!
I love writing letters and sending notes and packages through the mail. I still have notes passed between me and a good friend from 7th grade, and I have every letter my mum has ever sent to me, spanning over 40 years. I also every email she's sent to me since email's inception. I also have my mum's diaries (all except 1, which my eldest sister has at the moment), also spanning over 40 years. She was diligent. Family history is precious.
Yes, it really is.
I would love to talk with you about the magic of diaries. Perhaps to interview you on my blog if I could figure out how to do that. My mom encouraged me to write in a diary and to "KEEP WRITING" when her own mother had found her diary and read it to her card playing friends. My mom rarely wrote again but instead gave the gift of it to me. She always use to say, "How do you remember when that happened?"
"Because I'm a diarist."
Would you be interested in discussing the magic of diaries?
My grandmother kept a diary for most of her life and was a prolific letter writer. I wrote letters for years, until email came along 🙄😂 (sarahstyfwriter@gmail.com) - also, you're welcome to cross-post this piece ☺️
Thank you for getting back to me. Do you have her diaries or what happened to them? I've only cross-posted one time. I'm not very good at the business of substack. Yet. Maybe next year!!!
I don't know who has them, but she used them to write a memoir for our family ☺️
That's cool. The day my grandma died I was going through her desk and found her graduation book at the back of the bottom drawer. In it I saw that she had written for their publication and worked with the other writers. Dictionary game yes, but she never told me she loved to write. She wrote great letters from abroad but it was mostly about the beauty of weather and the busy schedule of going here and there and what they ate. She actually was a very deep thinker. At the end of her life she said to me, "You're lucky you know who you are. I never knew. I was so busy doing what others wanted me to do." My mom said the same thing to me when I asked what she wanted to do. "How should I know? I always did what anyone else wanted me to do." I've felt like such a rebel and now, in my 60s, I'm so damn glad I had that gene and enough permission to listen deep within.
On a personal level, receiving a handwritten letter by post always feels special. I very much enjoy epistolary fiction, and in particular the letters in the Dornford Yates books. I also enjoy looking through old books of example letters for different occasions. Letters in books really give one an insight into how people thought, and also how they expressed things. Great post, Sarah, and I love the note-passing exercise!