Click here to watch a video of me reading this piece.
Dear ____,
I just saw this 2011 film, Jiro Dreams of Sushi. It's been lingering in my mind. It's a profile of Jiro Ono, a legendary sushi chef whose Tokyo restaurant was the only sushi restaurant to get three stars in the Michelin Guide.
The film, which you can check out on Amazon Prime, is this almost zen-like meditation on what it is to devote your life to one thing and one thing only. I'm starting to feel this way about handwritten letters, which is why I found myself rereading Rainer Maria Rilke’s Letters to a Young Poet.
More than any other kind of writing–fiction, screenplays, theater plays, essays, journals–I've grown to focus on letter writing in my retirement. I've almost completely abandoned social media posts of any kind, preferring instead the physical, real sensations that accompany forming words on the page.
I love the fact that no matter where else these words may appear, only one person has the original artifact of their creation. I love thinking about them going to my website, seeing those words, maybe checking out a video of me reading a piece of writing. Then I like to imagine them smiling, thinking about how they have the original set of handwritten words.
And the recipient thinks: these words may inspire someone to look at other things besides phone screens and computer monitors…and this all began as scribblings on a six-cent piece of cardstock that arrived in my letterbox.
Be well, friend.
Yours, Derek.