Sincerely Yours: an epistolary column
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Welcome to Sincerely Yours, a new monthly-ish column of ALL DAY devoted to the handwritten, the savored, the nearly-lost: the letter.
To notice is to belong to the moment before it leaves.
To write a letter of the moment is to give it away while preserving it.
I have long loved letters. It might be one of the truest pieces to my calling. I love the act of writing letters. Carrying many in a stack to the mailbox and putting the flag up. I love asking the postal worker to hand-cancel the beautiful stamps curated on the bigger envelopes. I love the post office. Oh, I love letters! The pause they ask of us. The clarity they offer. A letter is not an update; it’s an offering. A letter says: I took time. I noticed. I cared enough to place thoughts on paper and send them out like a small boat on the open sea.
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Dear Sunday is ALL DAY’s monthly essay written for all subscribers. The Sincerely Yours feature will be a paid column. Check out what some of the ALL DAY readers have to say. And come join us! Love you!
We live in a time of great speed, where connection is often reduced to reply. But a letter does not ask to be replied to—it simply asks to be read with attention. Its purpose is not demand but devotion. This is the crux part: a letter is an act of devotion and generosity. Give it away! Ironically, when we do, we preserve our moment. Letters are legacy, but only if generous and devoted and free of expectation and demand. It’s the essence of unconditionality. I believe a letter is the greatest gift in today’s world, and in any era before or after now.
A letter is the most generous gift one can give. A letter is the pause between two people. It exists in the space of the relationship.
To begin this series, I want to begin with noticing. Because that is where all letters begin—not with what we want to say, but with what we’ve allowed ourselves to see.
A soft light across the table.
The sound of someone stirring in the other room.
A memory that surfaced while slicing an orange.
The shape of your shadow as you walk.
The weather.
I’ve been in Charleston and at a poetry residency in South Carolina. It’s perfect—sun on my skin, warmth in the air, a pace that allows noticing to rise naturally. I’ve taken long walks and sat beneath trees, listening. The uncountable hours spent writing, walking, researching, and pondering have been invaluable. I have three favorite spots on the various porches here, and I never tire of sitting in the sun. I will always be grateful for moving into the shade, something I would never do in the Northwest.
The South has always spoken to me in this way—through warmth, rhythm, and weather. And while I’ve often heard people say, “Don’t talk about the weather,” I want to say the opposite.
I am reclaiming the weather.
Weather is not small talk—it is the mood of the earth around us. It’s the biggest and coolest thing we can talk about sometimes! It is the conversation of the world around us, the language of trees and air and clouds. When we write about the weather, we’re not filling space—we’re entering it! We’re locating ourselves in time, in season, in the body’s felt response to the natural world. To say “It’s raining” is, in its own quiet way, to say “I’m here.”
My grandmother writes a journal entry every day. It’s the only journal entry she writes; each entry is a sentence about the weather. Reclaiming the weather is my gene code and heritage, and it is woven into my calling.
And so, as we begin this letter-writing series together, let’s begin there. With presence. With where we are. With what the day is doing outside the window, around you on the front porch, as you walk, run errands, and live your beautiful life.
Sincerely Yours will explore the inner and outer world of letter writing—from creative prompts and reflections to letter fragments and invitations to write your own. I’ll share my favorite supplies for letter-writing, vintage stamp suppliers (!), and envelope templates. Some letters will be addressed to someone. Some to no one. All will try to capture the essence of that quiet intimacy letters make possible: the nearness across distance, the presence within absence.
Letters hold an unusual kind of space. They can be complete and ongoing, intimate and public. In the digital world, they carry us toward one another with rare gentleness. They make room for wandering thoughts, emotion, connection, noticing, and legacy.
We belong to the moment, but through letters, the moments live in us forever.
Ideas inspiring the Sincerely Yours column for ALL DAY:
Writing the poem of your soul on the page of the world.
Saying I love you.
Knitting with silk yarn.
Drinking iced coffee while sitting at the bistro sidewalk table in the sun.
Calling your friend while running errands.
Writing a letter to a grandparent. If you don’t have a grandparent, finding one who doesn’t have a grandchild.
Doing what makes you feel alive and expressing that aliveness to those you love. Bonus for expressing the vitality in a letter.
Saying hi to a stranger.
Saying “I like your shoes” to a stranger.
Leaving a letter anonymously for a stranger.
Writing down your dreams before they slip away.
Painting a picture of your dreams and mail it to a friend.
Making eye contact a few seconds longer.
Meandering into a small shop and discovering the owner’s mother’s favorite color.
Feeling satisfied eating a piece of fruit.
Inviting friends to dinner at your house and sitting around your table. Serving your favorite meal.
Breathing your essence into every cell of your body and breathing it out again for us all to experience.
Try writing a letter this week. A real one. A short one is a good place to start.
Begin with:
• The weather, right now
• Something you noticed today that surprised you
• A sound that feels like home
• The last thing that made you laugh
• Something you’re holding onto
• A dream you haven’t spoken aloud
• A color you’ve been drawn to lately
• The light
• A sentence you need to hear
• A memory you’d like to hand to someone else
• A poem (send one of mine; I’d love to see it in your handwriting!!)
Write a beautiful letter. A humble one. An anonymous one. A postcard, even. And see what opens.
As always, write to me! I’m on the other side of a letter. Love you!
Sincerely yours,
Lindsey
PS, a couple of South Carolina Self Portraits as Love Letters (top left is the silk sweater knitting update, in case you are curious how it’s going):
Beyond excited for this new series! Che and I fell in love through eight months of letter writing as adoring seventeen year olds. I’m certain this had a hand in the strength of our connection. There is a depth of sharing, receiving, understanding, and knowing that I think is unique to the experience of offering ourselves to the page and then to one another.