On the death of an old acquaintance...
Aug. 7th, 2017 09:29 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alexpgpQuite by accident, I learned last night of the death of Walter K., who was the best friend of a close friend of mine from my working-in-the-USSR years. Galina and I visited Walter and his wife a few times shortly after Galina was allowed to leave the USSR after our marriage, and I still remember his warm smile and easygoing manner.
Though we had a number of friends in common, we never developed a close friendship with Walter and his wife, mostly because we moved away from New York, to Florida, and regrettably, I never kept in touch.
I just got back from our cluster mailbox, where I deposited my letter of condolence in the "Outgoing Mail" slot. I don't send a lot of snailmail, and when I do, it usually involves a trip to the post office, so slipping an envelope into that slot felt strange. For a moment, I imagined the slot fed a shredder, which probably represents the germ of a short story, but I digress...
I wrote my letter out in longhand, and though the words clearly conveyed my meaning, the act of writing something longer than a brief "to-do" description in my BulletJournal made me realize that, frankly, my longhand needs work. As I sealed the envelope, it occurred to me the enclosed letter may convey the idea it was written by a person of frail hand (not the case), but I put the thought aside, because le mieux est l'ennemi du bien, and anyway, I may be judging myself a bit severely in this department.
That said, I think what I need to do to ameliorate this state of affairs is to regularly write some serious longhand (in terms of penmanship, not content).
Back to work!
Memento mori...
Though we had a number of friends in common, we never developed a close friendship with Walter and his wife, mostly because we moved away from New York, to Florida, and regrettably, I never kept in touch.
I just got back from our cluster mailbox, where I deposited my letter of condolence in the "Outgoing Mail" slot. I don't send a lot of snailmail, and when I do, it usually involves a trip to the post office, so slipping an envelope into that slot felt strange. For a moment, I imagined the slot fed a shredder, which probably represents the germ of a short story, but I digress...
I wrote my letter out in longhand, and though the words clearly conveyed my meaning, the act of writing something longer than a brief "to-do" description in my BulletJournal made me realize that, frankly, my longhand needs work. As I sealed the envelope, it occurred to me the enclosed letter may convey the idea it was written by a person of frail hand (not the case), but I put the thought aside, because le mieux est l'ennemi du bien, and anyway, I may be judging myself a bit severely in this department.
That said, I think what I need to do to ameliorate this state of affairs is to regularly write some serious longhand (in terms of penmanship, not content).
Back to work!
Memento mori...
