I used to have time to write letters. Hand written, often illustrated with colorful design. Pages of them.

No more. These days it’s all about instantaneous communication.

Make a phone call from any locale, on a device that fits in your pocket.

Zip a quick email out from your computer keyboard (or from the screen of your smart phone).

Send a speedy text message that doesn’t even pause to spell whole words. LOL

With so many easy ways to make contact – anyplace, anytime – why do I feel like I cannot keep up my correspondences?

My phone is filled with unheard voice mails. Inbox is full of unanswered emails. And I never did reply with “K” to half a dozen text messages.

Communicating has never been easier, right? Yet I’m on a lag time that might as well be snail mail. My secret is, I like a lag time. And the problem is, I am a relic (and probably considered rude).

I long for the time when I had two weeks to get back to you. When you received my letter, it was an offering given with my full, ink-laden presence.

If you got a call from me on the road, it was only after I found a working pay phone and a quarter.

No one expected anything right now, this very moment.

Yes, it has changed. Social mores do not allow for a week-long wait on a text reply.

Yet, it seems the more I’m expected to respond immediately, the more I just rebel.

I’ve got all the tricks of the technological trade – email, text, phone – but little of the follow through for these advances. Hence, I just seem impolite or flakey.

So this morning I offer my “Reply All” to every person who has kindly taken time to try to reach me.

Even without our devices, somehow we are connected. I’m sending love and good wishes to you while I’m chopping carrots in the kitchen, not answering my ringtone.

Thank you for your email. When I see a window of time between the garden project and the grocery shop, I’ll try to give you a thoughtful reply.

In the meantime, I hope we can lean into that greater bandwidth that connects all things, you and I. It’s there that I’m sending you wishes for all good things.

I hope you’ll understand that I’m just living – sometimes laughing out loud – and I’ll get back to you when I can.

Maybe I’ll even send a letter…