I'm Italy Mone, and this is The Slowdown.

I miss letters, real letters you could open and unfold, an email isn't the same, is it?

An email requires an urgent response, it contains a deadline, a to-do list.

It asks for a quick and short response, but a letter exists in a different world, the

world of intention, of patience, of long loops of cursive, or even the short-clipped font

of the typewriter, the way even the handwritten name on the envelope on the outside of the

letter feels intimate.

For a world that demands immediacy and convenience, the slowness of letters feels like a rebellion.

I learned to write by writing letters in my early teens.

I loved writing notes to family members and receiving a note back.

I loved how writing a letter gave you the opportunity to reflect on how your day was,

on what was important in the world around you.

For me, writing letters became a way of figuring out who I was on the page.

Then of course, there's the unanswered letter, the one that sits on the desk or gets lost

in the shuffle, or worst of all, never shows up at all.

Those were always my least favorite films or stories, the one where everyone's life

is ruined by someone not receiving one single letter.

I've been that person that decided not to answer a letter.

I've also been the person waiting for a response that will never come.

Maybe that's why I write poems.

They are, in some ways, letters to the world, slipped under the door, not demanding a response,

just asking to be opened.

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