Why postcards?

Why choose to write a postcard a day for a year? Well, as I said, I want to keep the art of hand-written correspondence alive - but I have also always loved postcards. Sending them - and receiving them. My Mom had the most clear and tidy handwriting, and she could fit an entire letter about whatever trip it was onto a single postcard. She would usually send postcards that were educational or exemplary of the places they were visiting. My brothers and I have an ongoing tradition (although it's slowed in recent years) of sending each other the most ridiculous (cheesy) postcard we could find from any place we visited. A friend from college, who knew of this, would try to outdo them - and sent me some of the best bad/strange postcards I've ever seen from her travels in Africa and Italy ('St. Catherine's Head in a Box' was a memorable one...).

What's fun about a postcard, too, is that it's kind of like poetry. You have limited space, and have to try to distill what you would want to say down into fewer lines. And the postage is cheaper (typically - and if things haven't changed since I was a more prolific postcard writer!) than letters. I have always picked up postcards where I go... some are just beautiful images, that you could put in a frame, or pin up on a board...and some have reminded me of good times and places that I've loved. Many make me laugh, or smile. A postcard says 'I'm thinking about you' - and has traveled some distance to deliver it's sentiment; it is a kind of snapshot that you get to hold in your hand.

I used to be a really good, consistent correspondent - I unearthed a box full of letters that my friends and I wrote to each other in the 80's when we were in high school, and starting college. It was a big part of our friendship, and we became closer through the things we shared in those letters. I have always felt that what you say in a hand-written letter, or even a postcard - is different than what you write in an email. More of your true sentiment, more of yourself, is present. It is personal and evocative - it has a kind of presence and soul that email lacks. I can't help but wonder what kind of a difference it makes to today's teenagers and college students, that they do not write letters, but email and text instead?

Because I have always been so excited to receive postcards, I decided that one way to receive more could be to follow through on my good intention to write them more myself!...and I know myself well enough to know that if I make it a daily ritual, a promise to myself, in this way - that is the best way to make it happen.

As sustainable living is becoming something I'm more and more interested in - I can't help but wonder what kind of environmental impact international mail services have? It seems a good question to ask - and one that could unearth some enlightening information.

So - long live the hand-written postcard! And long live our ability to connect to each other in meaningful ways...