They Find Great Meaning in the Telephone Book.

Originally posted on February 25, 2013

We currently have three typewriters in our house – one electric, two manual.

The children have the electric one set up in their space, and they’re free to type on it whenever they like.  They’ve learned how to load paper, how important it is to hit only one key at a time, how to un-stick the letter arms when they forget and get overzealous.

We keep our laptops and iPhones and iPads hidden from view.  We have no television set up in our home.  Music is on constantly, and the dock for the iPod sits atop the fridge, out of reach.

There’s also a Tivoli radio up there, the old-fashioned looking turn-dial kind, which makes things look quaint and retro and sleek.  We listen to news and talk radio.  The other night I happened upon a conversation on our local all-news NPR station.  There were British voices, at least four, and they were talking about the differences between meaningful and happy, how so many of us strive toward happy when it’s really meaning we seek, how a meaningful life isn’t always a happy one.

I found this idea refreshing.  It made me think about the push and pull of social media, about my magnetic draw toward it and my simultaneous disdain.  About how I often seek meaning and happiness on-line, how I long to feel important by checking Facebook and seeing the little red notifications number.  About feeling disappointed if the number is lower than I hoped it would be.

And yet it needles me that in order to know about important news in my friends’ lives, I need to be online with regularity.  Friends go through major life changes, and I only know because of Facebook.  I’m reluctant to leave the social media world because of the connections I do get to make.  But I’m curious about how much more meaningful my experiences might seem if they happened the old-fashioned way, via phone or e-mail.

Or typewriter.

Yes, it’s full of affectation, of purposeful backward time travel.  But the idea of writing a letter, of hearing the click and the clack, of licking an envelope and pouring time and clear intention into one person at a time – well, it’s appealing.  I like the feeling it gives me when I think about it.  I like the idea of typing alongside my children.  I feel inspired when I think of adorning letters and envelopes with art and scribbles and doodles, of people receiving missives in the mail unexpectedly, of the love that feels like.

I don’t want to live in denial about how we communicate now. But I sure to like the idea of giving my relationships more real focus, more real meaning.

So please excuse me while I begin to collect addresses.

*E