Bringing back the romance.

In the heights of intoxication attained by chewing the leaves of a certain legally obtainable plant material (that is a fancy way of saying-“tulikuwa tunachana veve”), my friends and I were reviewing the effect of change on our current lives. The result left us feeling nostalgic and in a way, more than a little old. It occurred to us that due to the effect of social networking, the roots of true romance have died off. The emergence of Twitter, 2go and Facebook, has taken away the pleasures that were involved in the writing of love letters…the old fashioned way! During our time in high school, Mr Zuckerberg had not thought of a way he could communicate with other people who weren’t there, without having to get out of his chair, or use his voice. We had to put a whole lot of effort, and in the case of the creatively challenged; collective effort, to come up with a means to which our hormone fuelled teenage crushes would be put across. Girls in those days, were also a lot harder to convince. It took a lot more than a thirty minute chat on 2go where you profess insane amounts of lust for someone you have never met, to even get to first base. In the eventuality of this post, I thought it prudent to TRY and recreate the experience of a proper love letter…

  Darling,

I hope this letter finds you in high spirits. This is the umpteenth attempt at composing it, the others having been deemed unworthy. They did not seem to capture the essence of my feelings for you. I do not want to bore you with the details, but suffice to say, I am fine, and school work is not as bad.

Lately though, thoughts of you seem reluctant to leave my head. I find myself in a constant state of daydream, with you at the centre of every waking thought of mine. Remembering your beauty gets me through the day, and the memory of those gorgeous eyes filled with laughter and joy, gets me through the tough spells. Sometimes, I fill so full of love for you that I want to shout it out from the rooftops of the tallest building.

You are to me, my dear, like an exotic flower, cradled within you is a beauty not often seen, and demands that it be admired. The thought of you evokes the faintest whiffs of the exquisite scent that surrounds me at every embrace. I wish I could feel your touch once more, the light caress of your fingers on my skin as you lie on my chest during those lazy moments. Your smile always seems to light up even the darkest of moods.

I long for those stolen moments we shared during the long break. The moments we carved out for ourselves, just to be alone. It was risky business going about it, with your father’s legendary temper to consider, but the moments we had were always worth it. It is times like this, when memories seem to wash over me in waves, that I realise just how much you mean to me. I love you my dear, and that nowadays, is the only thing that seems to matter.

With every sunrise, a promise is born. That which vows to live and lead in the path of true love. Your love for me is an embossed seal, a vow and a promise; to lead in its path, my quest. I love you.

Your love,

Flani wa flani.

That was a hastily composed sample, of what used to rule the written world. Letters were awash with creativity and inspiration. Writing pads were bought by the bundle, and usually soaked in sweet smelling cologne, cheap as it was, before writing commenced. We even came up with ways of beating the postal system, involving used stamps, toothpaste and a curiously simple forgery process. The writing of those letters was akin to a sacred ritual, that was accorded the utmost respect. That was the heights to which we would go, to jot up our girlfriends.  If our teachers of English had us writing love letters instead of compositions of irrelevant topics, I bet all that I possess (however little it may be), that tour command of the language would have increased tenfold.