Email Conversations that Go Deeper
Every week, someone writes back.
Not with a heart emoji or a polite “Loved this!”—but with five-to-eight paragraphs about their mother’s dementia. Memories of a child who no longer speaks to them. Confessions of a marriage that died so slowly they almost missed it.
“I could meditate on that for a long time,” one reader says, reflecting on how grief spirals rather than marches forward.
From Kolkata, a woman thanks me for my honesty, says my words “resonate on so many levels.” In Croatia, another crafts a full essay in response to mine, sparked by a reflection on what it means to know anything at all.
These aren’t comments. They’re letters. Sent across continents. Offered to someone they’ve never met, but trust enough to be real with.
“How do you write about the complexities of human relationships so that neither love nor loss dominates, but both sit side by side?” a stranger-turned-friend asks.
Another shares the memory of childhood dreams she “bottled like perfume, carrying them through decades for safekeeping.”
Sometimes I find myself pausing in the middle of my day, thinking of something a reader shared weeks ago, carrying their story alongside my own.
You—my readers—aren’t “engaging” the way algorithms measure. You are sharing bits and pieces of yourself. Remembering. Bearing witness alongside me. And I feel humbled and honored to participate in these rich dialogues.
At a time when curate performances dominate, these messages feel like artifacts from another era—when people wrote letters not to impress, but simply to be understood.
This is why I end every essay with the same invitation: Just hit reply.
I read every message. I respond to each one.
Because even when I can’t fix anything, even when all I do is listen—that, sometimes, is the greatest gift.
The same gift you give me, again and again.
It feels like we are discovering some ancient magic in this digital age—not just saying “Me too,” but “I see you. I hear you. Your story matters. And here’s mine.”
And in that exchange, something so ordinary as an email becomes sacred.
