Dear Friend, Read The Letter First

Friendships, handwritten letters, and time.

“I have measured out my life with coffee spoons.”

The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock by T. S. Eliot

Until recently, I measured out my life with IKEA bags filled with notebooks, letters, postcards, books, and notes—all wrapped up, tucked away, and carried across different countries. Some are still left behind in the attic of a house in Romania, waiting to be shipped to The Hague.

Some days ago, I emptied the contents of four bags onto the couch and went through piles and piles of handwritten notes and letters, rereading, absorbing, reliving everything. It was an outpouring of overwhelming affection—and they warmed me as much as they did many years ago when I received them for the first time.

Handwritten letters have an enduring, timeless quality; they are vestiges of the time, attention, and care poured into them.

One particular letter stood out, rekindling my gratitude for that friendship, for those times. It's from a friend, Ana, from Poland, whom I met in my early twenties when we were both students, sharing a house with eight others in Berlin.

Ana is one of those very beautiful, very generous souls; the care and attention she gives to people brims through her letters. It’s palpable, real —I feel held, even seven years apart. I also see her very clearly—everything about the letter says, "I'm Ana." I recognize her and remember her right away.

Ana is one of those friends with whom I lost touch over the years. We used to send each other letters and gifts from Germany to Poland, but then I moved to another country, the pandemic hit, and I moved again. This continuous displacement does something to one’s ability to keep in touch in a way that feels good and nourishing.

Maintaining long-distance friendships is difficult. Only now—now that I finally have time and a home to rest in, without the urge to move again—do I feel I have the courage and energy to unearth what was lost and see what I can rekindle through effort, care, and time: through new letters and new adventures mapped across the world.

Because of Ana’s generosity and love, I learned about a city in Poland that never left my mind since she first mentioned it to me in a letter, and in her way, she included a beautiful notebook and a vintage postcard to ignite my curiosity: Gdańsk. Next spring, I'm planning a weekend adventure to northern Poland to see this city and to write about it.

The more I think about it, the more I realize that these old handwritten letters have kept this friendship very much alive. They make me remember Ana more vividly—beyond mere words and emojis scattered in social media chats.

There’s something so beautifully human and intimate about letters—one cannot simply perform, one cannot rush, one cannot forget. Time and memory are bound to paper.

A pile of letters | Ana's postcard from Gdánsk

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Thank you for reading! As always, I welcome your emails, stories, and comments.

If you’d like a letter or postcard, reply to this email or send me a DM here on Substack. I’d love to share them with my friends and readers, and I plan to send them out in December.

— Patricia-Andra Hurducaș