A letter begins in one person’s present and arrives in another person’s changed circumstances.

A letter is written in one moment and read in another, and the gap between them is not accounted for anywhere on the page. The writer’s present becomes the reader’s past, arriving into circumstances that may have changed completely. Everything sent is slightly out of date on arrival.

This is worth remembering with anything delayed: a message sent in anger, a decision communicated late, news that took time to travel. Ask what may have changed at the other end before assuming your version still applies. And when you write something meant to last, write for a reader whose situation you cannot predict rather than for the one in front of you now.