Wish you were here

"A friendship can weather most things

and thrive in thin soil;

but it needs a little mulch of letters

and phone calls

and small, silly presents every so often -

just to save it from drying out completely."

-Pam Brown

My friend Janie lives a ferry ride and about two hours drive away so we don’t get to see each other that often. We email voraciously back and forth and talk quite a bit on the phone. We both love to write however, and we love getting letters, so we decided to start sending postcards to each other through the mail.

I’ve recently found some great postcards to send her. One is in the form of a puzzle. You write a note on the back of the postcard, break the pieces apart and then mail them to the receiver, who then has to reassemble the puzzle to see what the picture is, and what is written on the back. I have to confess to a childish delight when I decided to take a photo of the puzzle card for this post, and had to reassemble the puzzle in order to do so!

Another card simply yelled her name across the store at me. No it wasn’t a talking postcard, it just was one designed for her. A woman who loves nature, is very artistic, loves writing, and food…not necessarily in that order

The last card is one that I found stuck between the stove and the cabinet of a house my partner was renting for a client. Definitely the worse for wear. And yet, inspite and maybe because of its battered state, it retains a certain charm. (I actually made a copy of it before sending it off to her…)

Being a “found” postcard it seems only natural to write part of the message in the form of a “found” poem. I’d better get to it before she reads this post…

Try it, there is nothing more magical than finding a real piece of mail in the postbox.