Mail Call, Panama 1976
There was a time when communication required patience—not the kind of patience we talk about now, waiting for a reply that doesn’t come within minutes, but a deeper, quieter patience. The kind that lived in the space between sending and receiving. The kind that asked you to trust that somewhere, miles away, someone would hold your words in their hands. I remember what it felt like to sit down and write a letter—not type, not tap, but write. There was a ritual to it. The paper chosen carefully. The pen held with intention. You didn’t rush. You couldn’t. Every word mattered because every word was permanent. There was no delete key, no backspace, no editing after the fact unless you were willing to cross something out and leave the mistake behind. You folded the paper, slipped it into an envelope, wrote the address by hand, placed the stamp in the corner like a quiet promise. Then you let it go. And waited. Days. Sometimes weeks. I learned what that waiting could...
