FBF: I Wish I Was Still There

In the last month I've been transcribing the journal I kept while traveling around the world from January 2017 to June 2018. It's been amazing to relive the journey, especially since big travel is not on the horizon for .... a while. I am fascinated by what I chose to record, and so grateful that I took the time to do this (although I know this will turn to frustration later in the trip when I'm pretty sure my journaling became a lot more infrequent).  

I also sent postcards, of course! I brought some along to get started, but naturally the big draw was sending cards from wherever we were.

First postcard sent from the road 1/29/2017 - to my ma

I even participated in LetterMo in 2017, and I was thrilled to see that I took some photos of the writing before sending them off - although more often than not, it was just a close up to get artist credit for the image and I can't see the whole text. So frustrating!

"Afatista em Alfama" Toni Frissell, 1946

Sent to a college friend in Colorado:

"3 February, 2017

Hey Chica! 

We were in Lisboa last week and walked around Alfama often, but have not yet seen any Fado. It seems primarily for tourists, and locals consider it old peoples' music. I'd still like to go, but it's also $$$. we are in Porto now, staying in an Airbnb that is a 3-room hostel. The other guests here DO NOT leave the apartment and rarely leave their room. It's weird. They leave tomorrow and we hope that no one else shows up. Tonight we went to a couchsurfing meetup that was very fun, although it's been so long I've been anywhere people can smoke inside it was hard to bear after a while. Rain continues to follow us everywhere. xoxo"

Narrator: She never did see any Fado.

I have to laugh at the sweet summer child I was at the beginning of this trip, because by the end I absolutely could have been the weirdo who never left their room in some of our stops. Also, get used to the indoor smoking, kid. RIP clean lungs.

Postage from around the world is also very cool:

Very inexpensive international postage!

I gave LetterMo a good try that year - which was mostly easy because we were based in either Lisbon or Porto the whole month. My correspondence after that became sketchy - there were plenty of places that I didn't have the time to figure out the post office situation, but also our schedule could be erratic and it was hard to be disciplined. Now I have a whole box of postcards from countries I've visited to join the huge stack that I inherited from my grandmother and her travels.

Stay tuned for more trip correspondence as well as more recent ones.

Weekend Postbox

I've said time and time again that the point of LetterMo for me is in the sending, not the receiving, but I would be a dirty lying rat if I said I didn't enjoy the abundance of mail I receive during the month as well. I've gotten a lot of great postcards, and don't want to wait until the end of the month to show them off.

Cary Grant, 1958, photo by Milton H. Greene

Um, wow. I don't even swing that way but that's a compelling stare there, mister. Swoon. They don't make 'em like that anymore. Ok, George Clooney approaches that Old Hollywood style of glamour, now that he's older, but I can't think of anyone else.

Sent by a friend before she took off on an amazing adventure - we are now getting more immediate updates from Myanmar when there's a wifi connection.

Illustration from The Macmillan ALICE by Sir John Tenniel

From the back:

"You seem very clever at explaining words Sir," said Alice. "Would you kindly tell me the meaning of the poem called 'Jabberwocky'?"

Can I just say that it's taken me FOUR YEARS to notice that this blog has a quote box feature? I am a master of observation.

Robert Ellis, Motorway/City 1969

A postcard from the road! Tilly was on a business trip in New Zealand (jealous!) and sent this cool card. Check out that cute stamp! On the picture side, even! I thought maybe that's how they roll at the NZ Post Office, but apparently Tilly was just being cheeky. She's kind of a rule-breaker.

The sender is a professional photographer, and this is a picture of a nest from her yard, marred slightly by the mighty machinery of the USPS.

Buffalo @ Yellowstone National Park, Dawn Taylor

Another dear college friend, one with whom I managed to stay in contact for most of the intervening years, with a few absences along the way. 2015 was a rough year for Dawn: she was diagnosed with a brain tumor (which she's named Bob), and as a result has had her life thrown a bit upside-down. She started blogging as a way to document and share her journey, and this postcard includes the URL for her site, so I asked for permission to post it here. Her frankness, courage and humor make this blog a compelling read, even if you don't know her, or know anyone who is living with something most of us will (hopefully) never have to face.

Brain Tumor Life blog

Kate Newby, Don't act all scared like before (Louise), 2009

Another postcard from Tilly - one that includes an honest-to-god "Wish you were here"! At least I think so - I've always been pretty adept at deciphering handwriting, but Tilly's is probably the most cryptic I've encountered in all my born days.

I'm going to miss seeing New Zealand pop up in my blog stats - it was a sweet reminder that someone out there was looking for me. I asked Tilly to just pop back there every so often to click my blog link, but she demurred. I can't imagine why.

Ketchup, or the art of catching up

Here I was, feeling so fine with my LetterMo postcard method down, my several new recipients, and my pile of waiting postcards to send - and it's a week later and what have I done? For whatever reason, the long Presidents Day weekend throws a wrench into my rhythm. I managed to get through it without missing a day, but barely. I may have just gotten through today on a technicality, in fact.


Sent Feb 11:

After my grandmother's service last month, my mom gave me some more postcards from her travels with my grandfather after he retired - this is one of my favorites from that bunch. I'm sorry I'm not able to ask her about these trips anymore, but I love to sort through them and imagine what she saw in them. The sheer volume of postcards I just inherited is impressive. Collecting them seems to be hereditary.

It's worth noting that all of these postcards are probably from the '60s and maybe the '70s. Instagram just can't fully recreate the look and feel of photos from that era, no matter how many filters they give you.

Sent Feb 12:

News broke last week that the Art Institute of Chicago has created a room fashioned after Vincent Van Gogh's iconic "The Bedroom" painting, to be rented through Airbnb for a paltry $10 a night (good luck getting a booking). Do you have any idea how much I would love to stay there? Dang! As a reminder of life's cruelty and why I can't have nice things, I sent out this postcard instead, from a book of postcards I got at the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam in 2011.

Sent Feb 13:

This is as close to celebrating Valentine's Day as I get.

Bonus! Sent Feb 16:

ok, I'm not totally heartless! I included this gorgeous PaperMilk postcard in with an overdue present to one of my favorite couples. It wasn't my official postcard of the day, but I was grooving on that leftover romantic spirit.

For reals sent Feb 16:

Last August, I tried sending a postcard to SEV, an old friend I'd lost touch with. As I suspected, the address I had was outdated, and the postcard never received. But she signed up to get a postcard as part of this year's Lettermo! I selected this postcard for her, because it comes from a Frida Kahlo collection I've had since college, and there was a date inscribed on the other side, as if I had started writing but thought better of it. Based on the date (January 1994), it's quite possible that I had intended to send this to SEV all along. Circle of life, or something...

Sent Feb 17:

Claes Oldenberg, Pastry Case I, 1961-2

Oh, yesterday I was in such a hurry in the morning, and I didn't have the luxury of going in late - so I used the ace up my sleeve and grabbed this postcard, slapped a stamp on it, and wrote a postcard to my mom at lunch (because she's one of the few people whose address I know by heart anymore).

Sent Feb 18:

I was in even worse trouble today - Tilly just got back from a long trip last night after a long international sojourn, so I was out of sorts this morning and even more rushed than yesterday. I took a stamped postcard AND my address book and tried to write a postcard during the day, and I just wasn't feeling it. I realized too late that today's postcard needed to go to a different person, but I had already started writing on the one with someone else's name. This left me in a bind - should I break my self-imposed rule about using the postcards on hand, or risk missing a day altogether?

I ended up coming home and finding a fresh (but not new! I already had it, honest!) postcard for today's recipient, and dropped it in the postbox just now. The mail got picked up hours ago, but I can truthfully say I wrote and mailed this today, so I'm calling it good.

I wonder how many years will pass before I find that first postcard again and decide to finish it?

Punto Medio

Somehow it's the middle of the month already. The last two weeks have flown by, and I've done a much better job of posting mail than blog posting. Maybe it's time for a check in - how'm I doing on my goals?

• Send at least one postcard every day: done! Writing postcards in the morning has helped the process feel more authentic, somehow. There was one morning where I was in danger of leaving the house without a postcard in hand, but I made myself stop to write one and went to work late. Priorities!!
• A new recipient each day: also not a problem, although there are days when I'm tempted to sent postcards to everyone who responded, right that second, and I want to make sure I'm not scrambling for things to say and people to say them to on Day 29. Rest assured, if you told me you wanted a postcard this month, it's coming.
• Send 5 for reals letters: oh geez. I knew this would be the hardest part, and it is. I did start a letter last week and, as often happens with letters, when I look back at what I've written I think it's dumb and want to start over. I think this is the true reason I prefer postcards - scribble something, pop it in the mail, done. No second guessing. But I've got a 3-day weekend ahead of me and plan to get at least 2 letters out the door by Tuesday morning.
• Birthday cards, etc don't count: Dang.
• Only use postcards on hand: I ducked into my favorite local bookstore last week and managed to escape with NO POSTCARDS whatsoever. It was painful. It did look at several, though. No promises come March 1.

Sent Feb 8:

Balthus - The Living Room, 1942

This does remind me a bit of the living room of my youth. I frequently read on a little rug in front of the fireplace, and there was usually a cat nearby. We even had a piano! And, while I don't think it was as true back in our formal living room in the '70s, my mom often falls asleep on the couch in her own living room now. Heh.

Also sent Feb 8:

A friend from the dance/performance community said that her daughter would love a postcard - I wasn't sure what to send, as I would see the child a lot in rehearsals, but not since then, so who knows if she remembers me. But My Awesome Sister got me a set of postcards from "Secret Garden", the adult coloring book that everyone was going batshit for at the end of 2015. So I sent one that was mostly blank, so the recipient could color it in herself.

Here's one that I colored and sent to Tilly back in January:

I'm an arteeest!

Sent Feb 9:

The first week in February I focused on people that I already correspond with, and this week have been trying to include those who signed up. This is just a fun image I got somewhere, some time ago. And this was the first recipient to let me know she received it (thanks!).

Sent Feb 10:

Louise Bourgeois, Untitled (from Ode á Ma Mère) 1995

My pal Dang Ramona has a fascination with spiders and frequently posts beautiful photos of them on her facebook page (to the horror of the arachnid-averse, I suppose). This postcard came in a packet from the Museum of Modern Art that a friend of a friend gave to Tilly - as soon as I saw it, I knew its eventual destination.

Speaking of mail, I should get writing to make the Saturday post...

Weekend Roundup

I know it's not the weekend anymore, but let's pretend I posted this yesterday, shall we?

I got my first mail of the month - not a postcard, but a nifty letter featuring Domo-kun. A highlight of watching the NHK Trophy figure skating competition every fall is seeing all the little Domos in the "kiss and cry" area where skaters await their scores after competing.

As you can see, this is one of those envelopes-and-letters-in-one, and I had a hard time opening it without tearing the edges. It's been a while, what can I say?

Mailed Feb 5:

Édouard Boubat, We Prefer Life 1968

Here's a great image that was almost wasted - I started writing to someone using this postcard way back in 2012, but only got about a sentence in. I kept this great image, though, so I decided to continue the correspondence and send it anyway this year. No big.

This is a map of the world created in the 1540s, I think. I've been reading a lot of historical adventure/exploration books lately, and it just amazes me how people made maps of the globe before all the major land masses were known. I mean, there are definitely some errors here - the USA was not connected to Russia and China 500 years ago, and I don't see Australia on here at all - but it's pretty amazing how close this gets, all things considered.

Sent to my niece, who is about to spend a semester abroad.

It was weird to not mail anything yesterday. Of course, I was going to get started on the letters portion of my month and didn't. I'm such a procrastinator.

The Wedge

I used to be a person who slept well. Almost too well. Morningtime was this mythical Atlantis that other people told tall tales about and I was content to peer at the edges from a fuzzy distance.

Now? I wake up at 7:30am, with or without alarm. Many mornings (such as this one) I wake with a start long before the clock screams at me, and there's no sinking back into slumber. I am aided in this by a certain orange cat I call The Wedge, whose only true happiness is to lie on top of me and purr REALLY LOUDLY right into my ear. His refusal to be dislodged would be impressive if it didn't make me so cranky.

None of this has to do with postcards, other than I'm up earlier than I'd like and thus writing.

Almost a week down!

Sent Feb 2:

I am helpless when it comes to PaperMilk postcards. If I see 'em, I buy 'em. Aside from the groovy images, the postcards have a neat matte finish and appealing design on the business side. I'm a sucker, I know. But I'll need to avoid the stores that stock them if I'm going to stay in compliance with Rule #5.

Sent Feb 3:

Paul Gaugin, Still Life with Apples, a Pear and a Ceramic Portal Jug (1889)

Ground Rules

This is my fourth year participating in the Month of Letters Postcards challenge, so the basic premise - send something in the mail every day in February with mail service - I've pretty much got down. There is inevitably one hiccup, but overall I always manage to send out as much mail as I planned. How, then, to make this year different?

Part of me chafes at the notion of having to constantly expand/improve (is this just a terribly American thing? We never seem to allow things to just be. Maybe I'm just cranky over having recently submitted my annual performance goals at work). But I also love a challenge and (annoyingly) thrive under structure. Last year I had some fancy notions of doing more, but they were just vague ideas so of course I didn't pay any attention until it was close to the end and too late to make them happen. With the idea of public accountability in mind, here are my 2016 Month of Postcards goals:

• Send at least 1 postcard every day there is mail (easy).
• Each day must have a new recipient. When I first started, this wasn't realistic, but it's totally doable at this point. I confess that by the end of the month I sometimes am feeling lazy, and it can be easier to dash something quick off to someone who already received a postcard (and thus might not mind a half-assed piece of correspondence) than to come up with something interesting for a new person. Also - last year I got mail back during the month, and wanted to keep engaging with those folks. Under this rule I can still send mail to previous recipients, I just have to do it in addition to sending a postcard to a new person.
• 5 for reals letters. This is my challenge goal - last year I wanted to include letters but the month escaped me. I may not hit the targeted 5, but having this looming over my head should help me carve out space to write.
• Birthday and other event cards and thank yous don't count. Dang. 
• Use only the postcards on hand. This should be a no-brainer, considering that I've got enough postcards in my house to send every day of the year (at least), but I have a really hard time getting out of certain stores without at least a couple tucked into my bag. I keep expecting Tilly to stage an intervention. 

Maybe this will help, maybe I'll come back in March and laugh at my foolishness.

To kick off the month, here is the February 1 postcard - the only one I bought in Barcelona last month that wasn't mailed from Spain (and subsequently lost en route):

This is a sketch by Josep Maria Subirachs, an example of the style he and his team used for the Passion façade of the Sagrada Familia. which is the one thing everyone absolutely must-see in Barcelona. It's breathtaking, and amazingly still under construction. There wasn't a ton of difference between my last visit and this one, but it's the one tourist destination that I would visit each time I came to the city.

bonus photo of the interior of the Sagrada Familia

Until next time...

Stop Holding My Breath

So much for the end of year - again. You'd think that I'd have lots to post about, since I'm a fan of sending holiday cards, but this year was, in the words of my grandmother, a "clutter-f".

I sent far fewer cards this year, in part because I took a trip in the middle of the month. I spent 5 days in Barcelona, a city I'd visited before, to watch the Grand Prix Final of figure skating. Yes, I traveled to Europe for less than a week to sit in an ice rink. That's what I do. I did get some exploring done, however, and I was so proud of myself for writing and mailing postcards while I was there. I made sure that the stamps I got were for international mailing, and consulted my travel book (and the maintenance guy at my hostel) to find a proper post box. I was already envisioning the post I would write once they were received.

Well, it's been 6 weeks, and I'm ready to admit defeat. No one has received any postcards from me from Spain, despite my best efforts. I was holding on to the outside hope that mail from Europe is just sloooooow, but I'm pretty sure the postcards from Beijing only took about 2 weeks. Sigh.

Here are the postcards that people would have received, had any arrived in the US:

This is the pier at the end of La Rambla, a bustling tourist destination. In 2011, I stayed in this area (mistake!), and spent way too much time in the mall on water in the modern photo, because they had free wifi and very few other places did. I was relieved to find that wifi is now plentiful in Barcelona. The smaller tower in the back is the start of a cable car up to the Parc de Montjuïc.

Posing the postcard on my Barcelona travel guide is a nice touch, no?

Another sight that I visited in 2011 but not on this trip - Antoni Gaudí's beautiful Parc Güell. If only all urban public spaces were so gorgeously designed!

March Madness

The only reason I know March Madness is upon us is that I went to watch The Amazing Race on Friday night, and instead there was basketball. I follow WNBA and figure skating, so I know the thrill of getting your non-traditional sport on the air, but still: meh.

March has been a bit mad. I've been trying to downsize my things (so painful), and getting organized generally means making a big fat mess first. Needless to say, I haven't managed to send anything in the mail in weeks. I've had more return correspondence from LetterMo this year than any other, which is fantastic but also makes me appreciate why we default to easier methods of communication (social media). My goal is to get at least two postcards out the door today.

In the meantime, here is the end of February so we can all move on...

Mailed Feb 20:

I think I sent this to my mom, who has been very nice about not getting as many postcards as when I first started doing this (and had fewer people to send mail to). In fact, she sends me great postcards herself.

 Mailed Feb 21

photo: Herb Ritts 1993

Last month there was internet chatter about unretouched photos of Cindy Crawford in a bikini, demonstrating her fitness but also very human-looking 47-year-old-2-kid-bearing stomach. I'm not sure those photos were real, but it did prompt a discussion with Tilly, and she recalled this image, which came out in the '90s and was quite famous (for the kids: that's k.d. lang in the chair). I actually already had this postcard. Of course.

Mailed Feb 24 (2):

The Two Fridas, 1939 Frida Kahlo

From the Frida Kahlo postcard book I bought in college. One of my favorite images. This postcard used to hang on my wall and has a lot of tape scarring.

Edward Gorey

In 2013 I hosted a couchsurfer from Montreal who'd been staying on a farm on Whidbey Island. She brought lavender and zucchini as host gifts, and also a pile postcards and told me to choose one. This was the winner, hands down. I didn't write down the title of this image - I believe it's from a postcard collection called Mysterious Messages.

Friday the 13th

It's the freakiest Friday, and I'm starting off with a postcard mailed a month ago. I blame having two Friday the 13thses in a row.

Sent Friday the 13th (of February):

This is a 3-D postcard, which doesn't really translate to digital format, but I dig the way you can kind of see what is going on there.

Sent Feb 14:

Valentine's Day! This was sent to the fabulous Katja 7, whose nuptials are right around the corner. I keep trying to goad her into some Bridezilla moments for my entertainment and she just won't do it. She's so hands off about this wedding I'm a little worried she'll forget to come. This attitude toward the bridal industrial complex speaks to our long lasting friendship, but I'm still hoping for a tiny meltdown somewhere along the way. Because I'm evillle.

Old School Cassette Night

In keeping with my last post, here is a letter I received at the end of February:

It's not a postcard, but a card, and check out the envelope...

It really is a pity that mixtapes are a thing of the past. They are such a marker of a specific time and place. I've made a couple of CDs for friends, and while it's a lot easier than recording cassettes, it's not as much fun. The flaws in homemade tapes - the scrap of the DJ's spiel from the radio, the abrupt cut when you don't push Record at just the right moment, the self-conscious soliloquies - often stand out even more than the music.

I still have a ton of cassettes from high school, college, and beyond. I break them out every once in a while to play on a Friday night when I've got nothing else going on. There's that moment when the music ends and you have to fast forward or just wait to reach the end of the tape before switching sides. Or you leave the room for a minute and when you come back you want to hear the song from the beginning and can't just hit a single button. Every time I play one of my precious, irreplaceable mixtapes I say a little prayer that this won't be the time that my boom box eats it. Dang Ramona got me a device that was supposed to convert cassettes to mp3s a few years ago - but the instructions were in Chinese and we could not get it to work, so I keep my boom box and I keep my fingers crossed.

a smattering of my cassette collection

So, this letter...
Like a new cassette from an old buddy, one who's been gone long enough that neither of you know where the other's musical tastes lie anymore, but somehow it all fits together, the familiar sprinkled with something totally new. This is what I have missed about correspondence.

What I Did in February

I'm totally jammed up and feel guilty that I did such a bad job of memorializing LetterMo. I just need to post this so we can all move on with our lives already. Here's a week (and then some) at a glance:

Mailed February 6:

Mailed February 7:
This one was from the HIDE/SEEK exhibit at the Tacoma Art Museum in 2012 - I regret to have not noted the artist.

 

Mailed February 9:
From the "Naughty Little People Postcards" collection - this one isn't so naughty

Mailed February 10:
Sent to a friend who now lives too far away for us to catch up like this.

Mailed February 11:
I love this postcard. No idea why, no idea where I got it.

Mailed February 12:

Forgive the paltry notes...3 weeks feels like a lifetime ago already. But one of the recipients from this batch sent me the Postcardly postcard.

There's always one

It's almost the end of LetterMo and I really thought this time I was going to make it through the whole month without missing a day (well, not really missing it). I had PLANS. I had a SYSTEM. I had FLOW.

And then I spent Sunday evening too hyped up watching the Oscars and then had an all day work retreat Monday and when I got home after work, I just did not feel like writing. Nope. In fact, I woke up Tuesday and didn't particularly feel like writing and wondered if I could just skip the last week entirely.

So I chose an easy postcard to write - something breezy for My Awesome Sister. And then I found the perfect postcard for Dang Ramona. Back on track, just like that.

Tonight I got home and found a fer-reals letter that I am stoked about - but I'll have to leave it for tomorrow because I've let the whole month go by without discussing the postcards I sent. Roll call!

Mailed February 3:

 When I sent this, I remember there was a reason I had selected this card, specifically for this recipient. That information has left my brain - the risk of waiting so long to post about it.

 Mailed February 4:

Jean Cocteau - The Act of Creation, 1949

Aha! I received a lovely postcard back from this person a day after getting the postcardly one. In fact, we write throughout the year, albeit sporadically.

Mailed February 5:

Debbie Harry & Andy Warhol circa 1977

Sent to a high school friend that I haven't seen or talked to in more than 25 years. I met her in 10th grade when I went to a new school for the first time since Kindergarten - she was my assigned "big sister" (through we were in the same grade). We shared a love for what was then called college radio music - she introduced me to The Smiths and Scritti Politti, took me to vintage shops and record stores in Philadelphia, and told me to STFU about the boy I liked who no longer liked me yet I managed to whinge on and on about him for an astonishingly long time afterwards (seriously, everyone needs a friend willing to say Enough Of That Already).

She also wrote me back, but that's for next time...

(oh-woah) Wait a Minute, Mr. Postman...

Whee! I got mail! A postcard for MEEEEEE!

It's funny. I started writing postcards again because I wanted to write (and I wanted to unload some of the postcards I'd collected over the previous 20 years). I knew better than to expect a return to the days of 8 page letters that take a week to write, an hour to read and days to contemplate before attempting a reply. I didn't want to go into this expecting mail in return - the process of sending missives out into the world would have to be enough. It is enough - that process is its own reward.

But.

I'd be lying if I said I didn't care at all about getting mail. It's fantastic. I love that some of my friends have started writing letters and postcards too.

Received 19 February:

This postcard is a picture of my friend's cats - it was created through www.postcardly.com. You open an account, upload an image, type your message and the address of the recipient and voilà! They create a postcard and mail it for you. There's a limited free trial and then you purchase plans either by number of postcards or by month - either way it's cheaper than buying postcards and paying for postage. Of course, it's not quite as awesome as doing it yourself: when I saw the computer-generated text on my postcard I admit at first I thought I'd gotten an appointment reminder from my dentist. So much for the swooping scripts and flourishes of a hand-written card - but really that's me being incredibly jealous that I didn't think of this first because it's genius.

# # #

I haven't even posted ANY of my LetterMo postcards yet. Here's one, mailed February 2:

I can never get enough of Jeffrey Brown's cat comix. Sent to My Awesome Sister, of course.