I dream of Jeanie with the light brown
hair, Borne like a vaper, on the summer air; I see her tripping where the bright streams
play, Happy as the daisies that danced on her way Hi boys and girls. Today I'm going
to show you how to write a letter. I'm Rajiv Surendra and I am a calligrapher
here in New York City, and I am honored to be pairing with the Morgan to inspire you
to shut your phones off, to get out some paper, and to write a little message to somebody you
care about and then to fold it up and then to put it in an envelope and then to put a
stamp on it and then to find a mailbox and then to put it inside and then they'll get it
and they'll read it and they'll be so happy and many many years from now
that little piece of paper might be sitting somewhere and somebody else might
come across it and someone might be very moved by what you wrote down on that page. Is that going
to happen with an email or a text message? Maybe, probably not. So, I need some coffee first.
Or do I? I probably don't. Okay Standards are slipping. Now if you've never written a letter
before I highly encourage you to do it. If you have written a letter and you know
what you're doing you can turn this video off or you can keep watching for some further
inspiration, but I want to tell you about the sort of standard method of writing a letter
if you're new to this or if you need a refresher and hopefully when you're done this video
you'll do- you'll write a letter yourself so because I'm a calligrapher and I'm in this
business whenever I'm at a stationary store or even a bookstore I go to the section
where there's pads of paper and pens and I peruse and if something intrigues me then
I pick it up and I have a- I have a heavy Rubbermaid box full of all of my stationery.
Now this stuff doesn't have to be fancy. When I encourage people to buy paper that inspires
them to write it doesn't mean that it has to be the finest French laid paper from a mill that
goes back to the 1600s. We have that in here though. It can be stuff like this. This is a kids notebook that I bought in Ireland when I was visiting
Gigi. Look there's some Gaelic on there. Dún an Doras. Yeah so it can be something like
this. It can be one of those yellow legal pads. That bright yellow with the pink stripe on the side
and yeah and blue lines. I like writing on that too. You know certain people require certain stationery
so when I'm writing to one friend I might not necessarily use the same paper that I'd be using
for another friend. I also in here have some neat things that I've picked up from my searching.
Here let me show you this because this is really wonderful. This is a mailable notebook
made by moleskin. Look at this thing. It's like a little take off the sleeve take it off! So you write the address on here and look. It's a little like notebook. It has one, two,
four pages so you write your letter. I actually do little watercolors in here so I'll start
writing and then if I'm describing something I'll do a little picture an illustration a
la Beatrix Potter and then you fold it up like this and there's it's gummed so it
seals like this and the edges are perforated so when the person receives this
there's a little sticker on here that instructs them to tear along three edges and the bound edge remains intact and they
open it up like a book so that's the very very long way around telling you that these
things will encourage you or they encourage me at least to write letters and this is a
little stationary treasure box that I have. It's always added to because it's often
depleted I write a lot of letters. Let's put this away. So get out your paper. Get out
your favorite pen and some nice envelopes and and then we're going to start writing now when you start your letter there is a format
of generally where you should put the date and the location. I mentioned this in the last
video but start with your Dear So-and-so or Hey or just their name however you want to
start write the body of the letter and when you reach the bottom of a page or when
you're getting close to the bottom of a page ask yourself if you want to tie up the letter
because if you feel like you don't have a lot more to say try to finish at the bottom of
the page try to bring your thoughts together and have your closing line at the bottom
of the page if you start another page try to fill that page entirely so that
you close at the bottom of the second or third or fourth page it just eliminates
blank space on a piece of paper which is not the best way to do this
but whatever that I'm being picky you don't have to worry about that now. I want
you to have a look at this piece of paper and I'm gonna walk you through how I do this. I
want to stress that you shouldn't be intimidated by the lack of fancy script even if you write
in chicken scratch that is special because that is you that's a sign of you and even if it's
embarrassing if you write a letter in your little chicken scratch and send that off to somebody
they are going to be very touched by the fact that you took the time to sit down and quietly
think about them and actually put pen to paper so I don't want you to see my handwriting and
think, Oh I could never do that and I'm not going to write a letter please please please don't
feel that way. I do want all of you to at least try this. There is something very fulfilling and very
therapeutic about letter writing. It's an art that I would really like to revive and if I could
contribute to some kind of movement that brings it back the way knitting was brought back by
movie stars then I'm gonna try. Okay, here we go. So I'm using this calligraphy nib in a
pen holder that was made for me by my friend but listen I also sometimes write with just plain
old ball points so whatever you like to write with. I start with the date in
the upper right hand corner. The date in the top right hand corner and
then the location where we are we are in New York City now I'm going to write: Dear Anna and as I
said think about who you're writing to if your relationship with this
person isn't very formal or if you don't want to write dear start
with their name Anna comma as I said pretend like that person is sitting at the
table with you and just start a conversation and you can start anywhere you can start with
what you had for lunch you could start with when I woke up this morning you can start
with last week I thought of you because that is the springboard
for the letter so Dear Anna Okay and I am going to start with
describing the book that I'm reading because I thought of Anna because
of the book that I was reading. Okay now I'm not gonna make you sit
here while I write the whole letter. so you write the body of the letter
and then when you are reaching the bottom of the page if you want to
sum up your thoughts to end the letter then as I said try to decide whether or not
you're going to finish on that page by the middle of the page so that you can fluidly bring your
thoughts to a close and then write Sincerely or Yours Truly or just sign your name at the bottom
that's all. I would write to Anna, Miss you lots, Rajiv. So once your letter is written you're going to let that dry I have to let that dry
and then I should show you for those of you that might not know how to address an
envelope. I don't want to use those envelopes. Envelope addressing some of you don't know how
to do this. That's okay that's what I'm here for. Envelope. Flap. Make sure the flaps this way and not
this way and sometimes I don't pay attention and I just pull the envelope out and address it and then
realize, uh oh, it's upside down. So right side up. I'm gonna put down some lines with a ruler and a pencil. okay so I'm going to put some lines in the top left corner because that's
where the return address is going to go. You can put the return address on the front of the
envelope but you can also put the return address on the envelope flap. That's also okay and before I
actually write the address down I usually put the stamp on the envelope so I know how much room is
going to take up- be taken up by the postage stamp. This is my this is my collection of postage
stamps. So whenever I go to the post office I always ask them if they have any special
stamps that have been issued and I just add them to this envelope so that there are there's
always an assortment of stamps. Look at these Sesame Street World War I Moon Landing wild and scenic rivers the transcontinental railroad
So this is another little thing. If you have nice stamps it's exciting
writing a letter and if you don't like waiting in the line at the post office that's okay you can
go on the usps website and all of these stamps are available to be ordered online they will send them
directly to your house very very easy I encourage everyone have a nice little stock of stamps just
a few just so that if you're ever struck with the inspiration to write a letter you have a
stamp. So I'm going to put a stamp on the envelope. Stamp goes in the upper right hand corner like this. If it's an international stamp, if it's
going overseas, then you need a special international stamp or you need to put
on at least three of these forever stamps. Now I'm going to write the address. Name on one line street on the next line city Brooklyn and then the states,
state of New York and then the zip code making it up and then we
do our return address over here so I have my envelope written now put your- fold your
letter just for demonstration purposes only seal the envelope and put it in a mailbox. That's all. Now I hope that this little video
has inspired all of you to actually do this to actually think of someone you
care about to sit down quietly and put your thoughts onto a piece of paper with a
pen and then to send them to your special somebody. I assure you that they will be very moved by the
gesture and maybe it can become a routine. I do believe it's very therapeutic and it brightens
up someone's day to get a letter in the mail. There you are. I'm Rajiv Surendra. You can
check out my work at LettersInInk.com and please peruse the wonderful archive on
the Morgan Library's website of some very very fascinating letters. It has been a joy and
an honor to speak to you on behalf of the Morgan and hopefully I'll see you again
soon or you'll see me again soon.
