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Sekai Nzenza On Wednesday
LOVE letters had a romantic charm that brought feelings of warmth and joy to the heart. They gave us an opportunity to express emotions of the heart. You would see a man or woman smiling upon receiving a letter from a loved one. Such emotions and feelings are fast disappearing due to technology, mobile phones, emails and other methods of communicating love. Almost three years ago, my niece Shamiso and her husband Philemon were sending phone messages to each other in very bad English. I saw the messages and one of them was written like this:

“Hesi baby. Whats up? Hw u doing?”

“Hello lovie. Mi fn. And yu?”

“I’m fin. Mis yu. Luv yu.”

“Luv yu tu Daddy.“

“Don’t fogt to kis ur son for mi.”

“K”

“K baby luv u. Bye.”

I asked if this is what Shamiso called communication between husband and wife. Shamiso nodded her pretty plaited head and smiled. “Why do you assassinate the English language through texts like this?” I asked her. Shamiso laughed and said everyone was doing it. Even elders sometimes did it. “It takes too long to write a whole word. If you can write luv instead of love, what is wrong with that?“

“But where are you rushing to? How can you possibly expect to write English and pass it if you spend so much time on WhatsApp writing such bad spelling ?” I asked.

Then my cousin Piri said I was being too hard on Shamiso. She reminded me that during our teenage years back in the village, some envelops used to arrive from the Post Office written: “Kiss B4 U Open.”

I told her that we used to write a lot of meaningful letters even though there were some bad slang type spellings. In those days, some boys took great pride in using big words to impress the girls. They used misplaced big English words or mavhoko echirungu.

A recent WhatsApp message I received from a friend of mine reminded me of such big words. The message was: “Do you remember these types of letters when you were young?” Then the message had the following caption: “The Greenland of Love. P.O. Box Hot Kisses, Via Romance. 9 May 1978.

Dear Sugar Pie,

Time and Ability plus double capacity has necessitated my pen to voluntarily dance on this blessed piece of paper. I am committing myself to this incredible act because my heart has received a message from the Heavens Above to whisper this message to you my sweet brown sugar that I am deeply and hopelessly and spontaneously in love. I am standing upright in horizontal physical position as I write this long missive to you my dearest sunshine, you with the eyes like stars and you who is my moon and also my sunshine and my rain. I cannot eat without you and every night I dream of you. My heart beats so fast and it can break if I do not see you. When, oh, when will you be mine? You are my chocolate and my sweet sugar and doughnut. Please tell me when I can see your angel face. I remain forever hungry for your love, Moses.”

I read this and longed for the days when communication between lovers was done through letter writing and not text messages.

There is a story about Gordon Bottomley, a British playwright and a poet who wrote about 500 love letters to Emily Burton for many years long before they got married in 1905 . In one letter, he wrote this: “O, how I hope that I am not estranging you even when I tell you that I love you wholly. That as long as I have known you, you have been to me ‘half angel and half bird and all a wonder and a wild desire’, that your influence alone can waken what is best in me . . .”

Theirs was a famous love story that lasted until 1948, when she died, one year before he did. The love story between Bottomley and Burton began with many love letters that would be kept in a box, nicely tied up with a ribbon. Each letter was written with a fountain pen dipped in an inkwell.

The days of Gordon Bottomley and our days of letter writing are gone, leaving us to rely on emails, texts and tweets. But what is the meaning of love when we no longer write love letters?

We have lost the meaning of emotionally charged words written on paper. This new age of digital communication makes everything move so quickly and we lose real meaning and feelings in the process.

A love letter used to require a person to sit down, plan and think about what he or she was going to write and how they wanted the message to be understood.

An individual would think, reflect, cross out words, make a first or second draft, crumple it and throw it away. Then sit down again and begin to write until every word is filled with real meaning and emotions of love emerging from the heart on to the page.

Love letters can be very poetic, because there is an intimacy in the act of a handwritten word. Besides, a letter is something you can touch, feel and follow the words with your fingers. You can read and reread it.

The receiver of the letter would find a nice quiet spot, open the letter slowly and read every single word, digesting and processing the meaning. He or she would treasure the words and enjoy the beautiful intimacy in of a handwritten letter. Sometimes the receiver would kiss the envelope, smile, kiss it again and admire the handwriting, fold the letter slowly, and tuck it somewhere safe and return to read it again and again. And smile. A girl can hide it inside a brassier or pocket. She can place it under her pillow then pray for some sweet dreams.

If the words at the end say, “I love you deeply from the bottom of my heart.” or “Ndinokuda nemwoyo wangu wese”, the receiver would know the message means just what it says. Hearts would pound with such words and feelings of joy rise from within.

A love letter used to imply that the writer had spent time in crafting the words that was coming from deep down within. He or she often meant what they put down on paper. There was a lot of joy in receiving a carefully crafted love letter from a man or woman who loved you.

Love, written on a piece of paper, was beautiful. Love, written on a mobile phone may still be meaningful, but it can never replace the love letter. An email or text cannot convey the affairs of the heart the same way the letter used to do.

Emails, tweets and texts are easy to quickly delete and forget about them. Love letters could stay, even after the love was gone and we remain with the memories.

Once in a while, we should put away the mobile phone or the computer and sit down to write just a few words to the one we love. Even if the postman will not be available in Zimbabwe any more to deliver it, we can still deliver the letter in person.

Though love between people might not remain the same, written love letters will always stay, singing away the poetry of romance on paper.

Dr Sekai Nzenza is a writer and cultural critic.