Postal Letters Are Like Books

Photo taken sometime in 1992 at our friend Norman "Oh!My!" Gorecho's photography studio on Evangelista St., Barrio Bangkal, Makati City, Metro Manila, Philippines: My best friend Rain and I with my sister Lovelle (in red) and friends (Joyce, Rachelle, Michelle Rufo, and Mayen Gorecho)

Despite the advent of Internet technology, giving way to efficient means of communication like the e-mail, my best-friend Rain and I continue to exchange postal letters with each other. We've been doing this even way back we were only a phone-call- or a jeep- or bus-away from each other. And we treat letter-writing the way we treat writing a poem or any other literary article: well-thought-of, well-versed, and well-presented. With the words wondrously weaved out of our minds, we never fail to inspire each other.

Sending postal letters, or snail mails as how they are called now, does not achieve the promptness of e-mails; but to Rain and me—and to our fellow literary souls, for sure—nothing could be more exciting and heartwarming than to expect a letter in a real mailbox, look at the name of the sender, carefully open the envelope, and finally read the letter over and over again there in the comforts of your own nest.

Postal letters are like books as e-mails are like e-publications or any other Internet-based articles, in which with the former there is a sense of ownership and privacy in sifting leisurely each page, there in the comfort of your room.

As my fellow New Wave–music enthusiasts in the newwave101 yahoogroup Rommie "Rom" Ramos and Bernard "Bong" D. Villanueva wrote:

"Books are a man's best friend, really....a book and I—a relationship I wouldn't want to give up. You hate it, you can throw it; you miss it, you can just pick it up gently; reconcile with it and you're a couple again...never complaining, yours for the taking. And the smell...some kind of wonderful feeling whilst rifling the chosen one's pages, especially a new one...."

"May magic ang book. Recently I borrowed a copy of the famed The Da Vinci Code...kahit sa kubeta, binabasa ko.Di ko mabitawan yung libro. P'wede mo bang gawin 'yan sa computer? Kahit 'yung laptop (notebook) ko, malabo kong dalhin sa kubeta; unang-una, baka mabasâ; pangalawa, walang linya ng telepono sa kubeta namin, at hinde pa 'wireless' yung bahay."