Postcrossing

The first postcard I received was from Kentucky. 

When we write, we create, and when we offer our creation to one another, we close the wound of loneliness and may participate in healing the broken world. Our words, our truth, our imagining, our dreaming may be the best gifts we have to give.

—Pat Schneider, Writing Alone and With Others

I'm a chicken. At least, I have the penmanship of a chicken. My right hand scrawls along the page like I'm blurry-eyed, drunk, or simply learning how to write for the first time: half cursive, half print, kind of wonky and weird. Akin to what the skinny Maester from the Citadel told Samwell Tarley in Game of Thrones: "That's irregular." Quite so. 

This wasn't always the case. It's just a forgotten art. My brain needs refreshing. That's why I joined Postcrossing. Postcrossing connects people from all over the world through old-fashioned postcards. First, you sign-up. Then you get linked-up with a person in need of a card. As soon as you send one and it's registered by your new pen-pal, your name lands in a Que to receive a card of your own. And so it goes. I've already sent cards to strangers in Russia, Germany, China, the Netherlands and Japan. The first card I sent arrived in Colorado, at the door of a mother of twenty-three: twelve biological children and eleven adopted children. Holy cow! Uff da Lutefisk! I wonder if I'll receive a card from distant relatives in Norway? I'd rather get Lefse. Or Aquavit.

The first card I received was from a lady in Kentucky. Needless to say, Postcrossing is fun. You never know who you''ll receive a card from. Or where in the world it will originate. 

Suddenly, the world doesn't seem so lonely. Suddenly, my mailbox - my real mailbox - might actually get mail.