Love Letters

By Bill Shapiro

In a Hollywood romance, you can always tell when someone's tumbling into love: the music builds, the camera closes in, and the beautiful people get a beautiful look in their eyes.

Up here in the cheap seats, it rarely happens that way. Who, after all, can pinpoint the precise moment when love begins? For most of us, love builds subtly over time, on a foundation of shared laughs, intimate moments and, often, love letters. And not necessarily swooping fountain-pen declarations of adoration either. More likely it's a few words scratched out on a Post-it, a postcard or a While You Were Out pad.

The notes you see here, collected from people all over the country, offer a glimpse of something we seldom see: an honest record of life's most candid, emotional moments. The fascination in reading them isn't just voyeurism. Sample someone else's tender sentiments, and it's hard not to recall your own.