Category — Letter writing

This arrived at our door on Friday. Thank you, dear Avital and Corwyn, for the drawings. Mail wins.

The other night I woke up at 3 o’clock in the morning with an idea: give up the internet for a year. While the thought came in the flicker of night, it has been gestating for more than a year. It began during the research and writing of “In with the Old,” an article for the New York-based journal The Curator, and set for republication this summer.

In it I wrote:

There’s no question that technology has overrun our lives. Over the past century, the world has welcomed technological ‘progress’ with arms wide open and we’re living with the clicking, dinging, anxiety-inducing deluge of it.

But a creative backlash is underway, helping human beings cope with the avalanche of data that passes in front of most of us every day through the use of computers and cell phones.

Slow food, the back-to-the-land movement, and groups like letter writing clubs are being formed by a new subculture: the 21st century luddite, wielding fountain pen and notebook, and some checking e-mail from the public library a mere hour per week.

Rebecca Dolen and Brandy Fedoruk [owners of a computer-free paper store in Vancouver, called Regional Assembly of Text] think this movement is more than a blip on the technological continuum.

“We started the letter writing club right off the bat because we wanted to have an ongoing community event. There have been a few hardcore regulars but 80% are new people each month. We started with five to ten people and now regularly have 20 to 30.”

There’s a universal sense that something must be done to rope the nodes in. But what? We can’t all pack our bags and head for the hills, or can we?

I’ve been growing increasingly uncomfortable with the role the internet plays in my day-to-day life and the impacts it is having in our society at large.

Last week I watched a CBC documentary called: “Are we digital dummies?” In it there is a scene where a priest is conducting a blessing service for smart phones. Here is a man dressed in holy vestments calling on the God of the universe to bless a Blackberry. I had a visceral — absolute bodily repulsion — to the scene unfolding before my eyes.

While the benefits of the internet are numerous: Skype and photo sharing, for example, it is mixed with an ever-dominating persistence for our attention, and it is this I find unsettling. The centrality of internet technology in our daily lives makes me squeamish and I feel I need to figure out why.

I have suspicions. I think the internet makes me lazy, as a thinker, a writer, and a friend. I think the internet allows me to emotionally disengage, enabling me to pass the time with ever-ready filler: mundane, contextless information via newsfeeds, Facebook and Google Reader.

The truth is, I am both bored and obsessed with the web.

It is my hope to complete higher education in the area of media studies, particularly looking at new media’s impact on our understanding of citizenship. During this season with young children I am able to do little to move towards this dream. Completing this year-long fast from the internet would allow me to conduct first-hand research while staying at home with my children. It will also hinder the amount and kind of work I am able to complete as a self-employed writer. Thus, I am seeking out a publication or two that would be interested in chronicling this journey. I am offering to submit a regular column by snail mail or couriered USB, as I will not be accessing email.

I anticipate this fast as an opportunity to enliven my real relationships and filter out the extra. I know it will be an enormous adjustment in my day-to-day life, but I also expect it will be a life-giving exercise. I know it will be a huge change for my family, in particular not seeing pictures and blog posts appearing online. Instead I hope to send a regular update (with lots of pictures) by mail, pick up the phone and have Michael organize Skype dates with grandparents and the kids. I will not allow our children to suffer the loss of grandma and grandpa face time on account of this fast.

Spiritually, I hope this fast will open my ears and my eyes to God’s voice and the world around me, and quiet the hum of my online life.

I welcome all of your thoughts (and thank those that already shared on facebook.) If I go ahead I plan to begin January 2012.

We regain our selves, our humanity, our wholeness

Seeing your words in print never gets old, particularly when it’s in a stellar publication like Geez. Editor Aiden Enns ran my words at the opening of the third chapter of their feature section: “newtopia.” I consider it a great honour. Thank you, Aiden.

You can read more about Geez Magazine here.

In honour of our sweet Madeleine’s first birthday, the Regional Assembly of Text is hosting their monthly letter writing party.

While the letter-writers are tip-tapping away, us and our sweet bean will be enjoying a family picnic in Queen’s Park, where Madeleine will bite her eight pearly whites into her first bit of cake.

I can’t believe she has been with us an entire year. She is our joy and delight — and this feeling, this enormous swell of abandonment, just grows and grows.

I made her a crown.

Thank you, Jesus, for the best year of our life. For her, our greatest gift.

….

My most recent article appeared in the New York-based Curator last Friday. You can give it a read here.

An excerpt:

“There’s no question that technology has overrun our lives. Over the past century, the world has welcomed technological ‘progress’ with arms wide open and we’re living with the clicking, dinging, anxiety-inducing deluge of it.

But a creative backlash is underway, helping human beings cope with the avalanche of data that passes in front of most of us every day through the use of computers and cell phones.

Slow food, the back-to-the-land movement, and groups like letter writing clubs are being formed by a new subculture: the 21st century luddite, wielding fountain pen and notebook, and some checking e-mail from the public library a mere hour per week. Dolen and Fedoruk think this movement is more than a blip on the technological continuum…”

This may be my favourite article to date. I hope you enjoy it!

Happy Dominion Day, everyone!

So, it turns out I have way more postcards than I thought. I’m not sure from where I’ve accumulated them all, but there they are:

I’ve decided to send postcards to anyone that’s commented in the last two months, because I am simply enamoured with this project. The more postcards to type, the better!

If you’d like to receive a postcard (complete with a typewritten quote of my choosing) than simply say HI! below and I’ll follow-up to get your address. Know a friend who’d like a random postcard to show up at their door? Send them over…

Tippity-tap-clackity-clack, your resident of-all-trades-jack: Christina

Griffin and Sabine postcard by Nick Bantock

Hi friends,

I’ve been blogging on this here ‘ol site for a good six years now. I started on xanga and made the switch to wordpress a while back. In xanga-land we had an awesome community feel, with comments reaching upwards of 10-20 per post. These days this blog is silent, save for comments from blog-reader-and-now-dear-friend Julia and my stepmom. (Thanks guys!) I think part of the reason is that I am uploading the site to facebook so a lot of you are commenting there instead of here.

I guess, what I am trying to say is: “I miss you!!” I miss your comments right here on “The Poetry of Life” — christinacrook.com.

I want to know my readers, ‘talk’ with you and interact with your feedback and comments. I want to know what parts of this site you love — confessions? poetry? words for thought? pictures? recipes? snapshots of life? Please share your thoughts… 

Here’s how I hope to get you to say “Hi!” –

Comment below (here, on the blog, not on facebook) and include your mailing address (if you prefer not to write it on the site, leave your e-mail address and I will send you a message to get it.)

Within the week I will mail you a postcard with a type-written quote! I have a vast collection of postcards — Griffin and Sabine, CBC Radio 3, vintage ones collected at garage sales… Request one, or wait and be surprised! I’ll feature the cards and quotes here in the weeks to come.

Hoping to hear from you…

xo Christina

His name is Remi, we are having a love affair, and my spouse knows about it. 

He is a Remington Portable. A archetypal typewriter manufactured in the mid-1930s. His ruddy grey body sits squarely in the centre of my coffee table, the focal point of our living room. And rightly so. As a writer married to a bibliophile, words are central in our home.  

And now more than ever. As new mother I have never been so keenly aware of language. Word by word I am naming my daughter’s world. Raffi songs are sung by heart, daily chores are narrated, and tastes, colours, sights and sounds are animated for her sheer delight.

My daughter teaches me each day that, when it comes to words, it is all about the delivery. For instance, plainly announcing “We are going for a walk” receives no more than a glance, while sing-songing the same line results in a mess of wild baby giggles.

Typewriters have a similar effect on me.

It doesn’t matter what words fall into Remi, he makes them beautiful. It’s this beauty, and the love of sending and receiving letters, that inspired my friend Marisa and I to co-found the Vancouver Letter Writing Party last fall. Each month a growing number of us gather for no other reason than to type. Letters are written, brimming with minutiae, and they are beautiful.

These words want to be read. They are climbing up, off of the paper, begging to be stamped, sealed and sent.  

When was the last time you wrote a letter — typewritten or otherwise?

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This post originally appeared on the After Hours blog.