Today I found his letter in my mailbox. My first impression was that he'd recycled some previously-used paper for the envelope, as I often do. It was sealed with wax, and I opened it very carefully so I wouldn't destroy the impression in the wax. Then I realized that the writing on the paper he used for an envelope was a hand-written letter to me. It was written in what he called the Australian heritage form that was used when the convicts first arrived in Australia in 1788. These convicts would get two sheets of paper a month, but no envelope, and they had to make their own ink by boiling tree bark. Robert does all of this the same way. He went on to tell me the history of his part of the country-- Deception Bay. It was fascinating. The painted card is his delicately-rendered watercolor of Freshwater Creek, Deception Bay, where it enters the Pacific Ocean.
I'm starting to think that I don't put nearly enough time or labor into my etegami to deserve this kind of gift. But then, etegami isn't meant to be a laborious or time-consuming form of correspondence, so I guess that's okay. But how I respect the time and research and passion that some people invest in preserving our snail-mail heritages, from stamps to paper to handwriting to art. I'm feeling..... like wow.
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