Epistling -- vbl. sb. Obs.

The Oxford English Dictionary (one of my favorite bits of light reading) defines Epistling as: Epistolary matter; correspondence. As if that weren't wonderful enough on its own, there are other great words like:

Epistler (the writer of an epistle), epistolarily (also epistolarly or epistolatory, in the manner of a letter or epistle); epistoler or epistolean or epistolist (the writer of an epistle), epistolet (a small epistle); and, my favorite, epistolizable (that which may form a letter).

All this is to say that much of what I will be sharing here are letters, as I mentioned before -- mostly to my daughter, many to friends. Letters are wonderful things, and while I'm not one of those Luddites that descries e-mail because it has allegedly ruined letter-writing as an art (I find I'm more likely to write longer, and better, in an e-mail than if I had to commit pen -- or typewriter -- to paper), I do think that too many people now are content to use a shorthand form of communicating, whether in text messages or e-mails, rather than putting in the time and the effort to craft a message, no matter how short that communication might be.

I send my daughter long letters, short notes, and random observations on a regular basis; I will post and share a number of these in the days to come.

In the interim, I do urge anyone who may read this to think about putting in some serious time when you write to someone, no matter how trivial it may seem at the time. You never know who might read it someday.