How to Read Love Letters
Dear Reader,
As Valentine’s Day swiftly approaches, I thought that this theme would be apropos.
Ha. No, I will not actually be writing on this theme. Love letters are particular things. A probably misplaced sense of humor inspired me to pretend for a moment to have entertained the notion of holding forth with a pedantic prescription on the reading of love letters. I will spare us all that absurdity.
I will say that love letters seem to be arranged primarily in one of three ways: an enamoured party has written to a non-entranced reader; a non-enamoured party has written to a smitten reader (also known as the rejection letter); an enamoured party has written to an equally—or near equally—enamoured reader.
It’s an interesting balance, the appropriateness of a love letter. Here’s to the well-matched kind. My own preference—at least for valentines—are those from nieces and nephews. They do great work and I give them chocolate.
To felicitous letters,
Kreigh
P.S. I do have a sort-of-valentine for you. I found a great piece that echoes—and does a lot more than—my own piece on “Academic Reading and Practitioner Reading.” In fact, “Disarming Frontline Doctors” gets after the theme I was pursuing from a very different angle. It’s not even quite the same theme. And yet it’s so nearly analogous, so much a richer cousin of my own, that I had to share. Read it instead of reading more from me: it hits many things I’ve tried to explore, but through a narrower and better lens. Yes, my valentine to you is an essay. What else would you expect?