Today I did something I haven’t done for fun in ages—I usually only do it when somebody dies. Can you guess? I wrote a letter. I communicated with another human being using a pen, paper, and a stamp (really two stamps since I needed a two-cent one). Not an email, not a text message, not a phone call, but a letter.

When was the last time you wrote or received a letter—postcards or lame holiday newsletters don’t count. Their rarity makes letters magical. You pull it out of the stack of bills, politician newsletters, and catalogs and stare at it. “A letter? Someone sent me a letter?” You read it—maybe it’s from Aunt Rose or your college roommate. But you can’t throw it away just yet. It’s a letter! So you put it on top of the fridge and tell people, “Hey, I got a letter today!” It gets covered with junk mail, but days later you’re sorting and you read it again.

That’s the thing about letters. They get saved. They get read. They get shown to other people.  They have that person’s distinct handwriting, not Times Roman or Lucinda Calligraphy.

So whom did I write to? Some guy named Myles I don’t even know. He’s a copyeditor at my local paper and he wrote a piece about seizing life. At the bottom was his email address. I was going to email him, but then I remembered my “readers folder.” Some people have let me know when they like something I write. Usually an email, sometimes a phone call from a friend. But I have a few notes forwarded to me from magazine editors. Notes that said, “I liked it.” The emails were clicked into the trash file, the calls forgotten. The letters remain in my “readers folder.” Some are over a decade old.

So I took ten minutes (most of it was spent looking for the two-cent stamp) to write a letter. It is fun knowing I gave someone a “wow” moment. Surely, you can think of someone to send a letter to today.  There’s a blue light special on wow today-- 41 cents.

While you’re searching for a stamp don’t forget to look for an eraser, too.  Wednesday is Puzzle Day!