Haiku With Friends
When I was a kid, I wrote lots of letters to my cousin, Sally, and family friend, Katherine.
It made sense that Sally and I wrote to each other since we didn’t see each other often. I lived in the southern end of California and she lived in the northern end. It was the best way to keep in touch with a cousin I adored. Katherine and I saw each other often since our parents are best friends and our families lived nearby. Katherine and I were essentially up-to-date with each other’s lives, but still, we wrote lots of letters.
We didn’t just whip out short postcards. We wrote pages and pages with loopy cursive on cute pink stationary adorned with flowers or kittens. The letters were a delightful surprise when they arrived in the mail. Oh, how I wish I’d saved those missives of innocence and youth!
Now, in my sixties, I rarely write letters. Of course, I still write thank you notes because my mama taught me that’s what polite people do, but they’re short and sweet. Writing thank you notes is usually part of a TO-DO list and not something I do for pleasure.
Since communication is so easy now, it seems logical that I’d contact friends and family more. My phone is always with me. I can text with cute emojis, post on social media, or send an email with complete thoughts. I could—shock of all shocks—make a phone call! And yet, it feels like I don’t do any of these options as much as I should.
Maybe humans communicated more when we had limited communication tools and fewer digital distractions? When I was a kid, long phone calls were too expensive, and there were only a few TV channels that got my attention. Now, I have unlimited minutes and one fee whether I connect with you across the world or down the street. I can binge any form of entertainment for days and nights on end. When I was a kid, writing letters was a form of entertainment. Who knows, maybe my mom said, “Write a letter to Sally or Katherine,” whenever I complained about being bored. Back then, we actually got bored. Imagine that!
Whenever I watch BBC period pieces (be still my Pride and Prejudice adoring heart), I love the scenes when the family gathers after dinner. In addition to witty conversation and scheming to find a husband with good fortune, the entertainment options are usually the same: playing cards, listening to a sister play pianoforte, needlework or mending, reading books, or writing letters. I’d love to be the modern woman who lights a candle and sits at her desk with a fountain pen and fabulous stationery, writing literary letters to beloved friends and family. I can hear the pen scratching the paper. I’d love to use warm and drippy wax seals to close my envelopes.
Alas, I am not a Regency letter-writing lady, but from 2021-2023, I did participate in a letter-writing project with my friends Patty and Susan. We wrote a haiku chain letter that went up and down the California coast from Palos Verdes to San Luis Obispo to San Carlos and back again. In the past, we were used to seeing each other for yearly reunions, but then life and the Pandemic delayed our visits. I’m blessed to have friends who play along with my haiku obsession. .
I loved it when I opened the mailbox and saw Susan’s familiar handwriting on an envelope. I knew I was in for a treat: short and sweet life updates written as haiku. One from Susan. And one from Patty. I added mine and send the letter to Patty. She’d write a new one and send the letter to Susan who sent it back to me. Around and around it went.
This is the paper we used. When it got full, I saved the old one and replaced it with a fresh copy.
Here are a few of the haiku I wrote to Patty and Susan.
I wrote this one on 3/17/22 when Pandemic restrictions were beginning to lift in California:
native plants blooming
first in-person class next week
ready to emerge
I wrote this one on 12/30/23 with hope for the new year:
priorities right:
haiku, happiness, and health
a lot more laughing
Then, I wrote this one on 1/28/23 and called it Change in Plans:
hysterectomy
scheduled for Valentine’s Day
it’s sooooooo romantic
Since we all wrote on the same page until it was full, the paper became soft because was folded and unfolded several times. We attached the same Post-it note with all our addresses so no one needed to take time to find address books. Often, we wrote little comments next to each other’s haiku. Little hearts, happy faces, sad faces, or even longer notes on the back of the page.
Even though the haiku chain letter was an incomplete picture of our lives, it kept us connected until we could fill in the details during face-to-face visits.
If you would like to try this with family and friends, I made a downloadable version that can be customized with your names. If you want the chain letter to continue after the first page is full, just swap it out for a blank copy when the chain letter comes to you. It’s that easy.
I saved all our haiku chain letters. When Patty and Susan come to visit, it might be interesting to review all the events that made it into our haiku over those three years. What will we read between those three little lines? What couldn’t be expressed in seventeen syllables?
Face-to-face visits are always best, but when that can’t happen, short and sweet haiku will do.
