A Substacker recently turned me on to Letters Against Isolation, a nonprofit that coordinates the delivery of hand-written greetings to people for whom age or diminished independence, illness, or other circumstance have caused isolation, a loss of community connection, and/or loneliness.
This is balm to my little letter-loving soul.
When I was a kid—and later, as a young adult—I would often receive a letter a week from my grandmother, who wrote to me about the weather, the news, things in my life she kept tabs on, the woodchuck she shot at (and missed) from her farmhouse’s front door.
She had been a letter-writer her whole life, corresponding from her girlfriends from her rural Minnesota high school as they married, had children, moved away. She added hundreds more recipients to her address book over the years—people she sat next to on airplanes, far-flung friends and relatives needing prayers at Sunday service, families who shared the ICU waiting room with her, all those months, and knew she’d had to turn off the ventilator to let her husband die.
Like Deborah Way, founder/curator over at The Keepthings, I have whole file folders of my grandma’s letters, her curly script harder to decipher as years crept by, mostly due to her clouding eyesight. I realized recently that I will need those letters again one day soon when I try to decode penciled notes in her handwriting across the hundreds of heirloom family photos she inherited and that now live with me. By knowing the very shape of her letters, I can more easily make out the names and places to which I myself have no other record of belonging.
That’s all to say that letters can mean so much.
They might help someone who is lonely feel less alone. They might jog a memory that your recipient will share with the next person who walks through their kitchen door. They might just be a reason to walk to the mailbox and peer inside. They might be a reason to pen a note and put it in that same hopeful mailbox, its eager flag raised.
I’ve been writing 10-15 notes a week with Letters Against Isolation. It feels like a stretch (close to deadline), but it feels GREAT to send those words into the real, live world. I sign up to send letters to nursing homes, assisted living and rehab facilities, and Meals on Wheels recipients in areas I have some personal connection to. Last week I included a photo of one of my first dogs, Freckles, who came from a breeder in Idaho, when I lived there once upon a time. In each letter — to a senior in Idaho — I told a different story about my furry and hard-headed companion, who lived 12 years of a dog’s best life:
Semi-Pro Tips for Participating in Letters Against Isolation:
Learn the system. They’re good about privacy—in fact, the process feels a little wonky the first time around. You register to write through their homepage (schools and other groups can register together!), and then you receive a SEPARATE email invitation to log in to the real magic: the backend portal that keeps track of who has registered for what and dispenses real addresses.
Start slow. Sign up to send five notes. The system gives you one week from the date you choose your recipients to put your letters in the mail.
Mail in bulk. It’s cheaper to send multiple letters to one destination in a single larger envelope.
Choose your own anonymity. It’s up to you whether to reveal your own return address. If privacy is a concern, you can always write the recipient facility’s address as the return, so your envelope is sure to get there, even in the event of delay.
Tell stories you haven’t told in a while, if ever. Let a place surface a memory. Tell the shape of it, how it feels, tastes, smells, leaving out identifying information that feels too personal. Or not.
I hope you’ll join me in this slow, almost vintage mutual aid.
Already a letter lover? Tell me the story…
