I was delighted to discover that Budget Travel asked readers on their forum the other day: Do you still send postcards? To which they received a whopping 300+ comments! Way back in February, starting on Valentines Day to be precise, I began writing a series of posts on postcards, inspired by seeing racks of faded cards during our travels in Crete, starting with Postcards: does anyone still send them? Then I wrote Postcards: our processes of selection and identity formation (about how we choose postcards that say something about who we are, or perhaps the person we want people to think we are); Postcards: to my Mum (about the cards I sent daily to my mother in 2006 while she was in a coma in Australia and I was finishing a job researching a book in Greece, and thinking about her on those long daily drives); Postcards: sending secrets (about Frank Warren's wonderful PostSecret community art project that has become a global phenomenon); and then Postcard stories, where, due to the positive response from my readers (of course I didn't get 300 responses like Budget Travel, but it was enough for my modest little blog!), I decided to write a feature story for publication on the resurgence in popularity of sending postcards. In Postcard stories I put out a call for comments and asked a number of questions that I hoped would inspire you to think about how you feel about postcards, why you send them, whether you keep them, and so on. I'm still developing that article and incorporating the many comments that I've already received (and quoting you, so please let me know if you don't want me to use your name), however, I would still love to hear from more of you, as I don't really think we've really got to the heart of it yet. Not even in the many comments over at Budget Travel. I'd really love people to think a bit more deeply about it. So if you love postcards as much as I do, please take a look at the Postcard stories post again, and leave comments at the end of that post or here. Or email me privately if you prefer to remain anonymous.
Oh, and Pam over at Nerd's Eye View also has a fun Postcard Revival Project underway, which you can read about here.
Postcards are things I'm passionate about - whether it's browsing, writing, sending, or collecting them - so I've decided to write a magazine article about the travel postcard. If you share the passion and would like to share any postcard tales with me for my story, I'd love to read them. I'm keen for anything at all: do you still send postcards when you travel or do you prefer to email people or stay in touch some other way? do you consider the cards you're selecting or do you just grab a stack of any old cards? do you plan what you're going to write or do you just go with the flow? what do you write? do you write about what you're seeing and doing, what you've experienced, or what you're thinking or feeling? do you write a novel or just jot down a couple of sentences? do you try to fit as much as you can on to a card or as little as possible? does the location where you write the card matter? should it be at an atmospheric cafe, al fresco bar or in front of some inspiring scenery? or could just as likely be on your hotel room bed? do you set aside part of the day to write? (for instance, at the end of a day's sightseeing with a drink in hand?) or do you cram in a card whenever you can (at a bus stop or airport for example?) do you give each card personal attention (with the recipient in mind?) or do you write the same note and tell the same stories each time? how many cards would you send on one trip? do you write to the same person more than once? do you ever address and stamp the cards and not get around to sending them (or is that just me and my mum?) and if so then what do you do? do you send cards cause you're passionate about it or is it just a matter of duty or out of habit? do you still like receiving postcards? and if so, what do you do with them when you get them? (do they go on a fridge or in the back of a drawer, or in the trash perhaps?) or do you just buy cards for yourself cause you collect them? Have you ever sent a postcard to PostSecret? Please leave a comment below, or email me if you prefer, and, if you're happy to be quoted provide your name; if not, I'd still love to get your comments. It would also be really helpful if you could fill out the survey to the right so I have some stats for the article. Thanks!
While I admit to writing personal messages on the postcards I send to people (knowing too well that a bored postman somewhere might have a read), I've never considered sharing secrets on a card for the world to see. But that's exactly what thousands of people all over the planet do when they send their handmade postcards to Post Secret. A community art project created by Frank Warren (following a dream he'd had in which postcards with cryptic messages appeared to him; read more about why he started PostSecret here), the site displays the cards people send Frank with their witty, insightful, uplifting, heartfelt, and often heartbreaking messages. Warren has also published four beautiful books featuring some of the postcards, called The Secret Lives of Men and Women, My Secret, Extraordinary Confessions from Ordinary Lives, and A Lifetime of Secrets. Spend just a few moments at PostSecret and you'll quickly appreciate why it's one of the most popular blogs on the web. And if you don't get it, take a read of the honest and occasionally heart-wrenching posts on the PostSecret Community chat room. Some comments I like about why people love the project and the PostSecret community: "... it made the world seem a little smaller... and allowed me to believe we were all more alike than we could admit publicly" and "I find it so interesting to take a glimpse into the life of others. I guess its because its the closest for me to a trip around the world." And we'd all love one of those.
Okay, I have a few secrets to share: sometimes I do get tired of travelling, I miss having a 'home', I miss our old apartment in Dubai (pictured), I miss the things I collected on our travels, I miss my painting 'Mustapha' which we bought in Alexandria, but most of all, I miss my family and friends.
When I used to buy postcards I would browse the racks for hours. Or so it seemed. The card had to be just right. It had to represent as accurately as possible the things I had experienced, the places I had been, and the stuff I had seen. If there was a connection between the image on the card and the person I wished to send it to, all the better. For instance, the cards below which I sent to mother from Greece and Amsterdam had nothing or little to do with those respective destinations. The card of old Hong Kong I found at a museum: I hoped it would remind my mother of her travels to Hong Kong when she was young. The image of pretty feet decorated with henna and silver rings reminded me of the time my parents visited us in Abu Dhabi and I took my mother to the ladies salon to get some henna done. And the painting of Ukrainian women, from an art exhibition in Amsterdam, was intended to remind my mum of her beloved parents, now dead, born in Russia. If I can't find cards that make a connection to the recipient, then I look for postcards that represent me, that reflect my feelings at the time, that say something about me, what I'm doing, and what I'm thinking. (When I sent the tulips, I was in Amsterdam, life was good, and I was happy.) Or perhaps the postcards I choose are simply a demonstration of my taste or style, of the kinds of things I like, of whom I am, and how I want to be seen. Can something as simple as a postcard help represent, even shape, our identity? And why is this even important to us? Well, for me, it's because I'm so far away. I don't want my family and friends to forget me. To forget who I was. And perhaps I want them to try and understand the person I am now. The person I've become since I've been 'away'.
The last time I recall sending postcards was in April and May 2006, to my mum. My mother had been hit by a car and was in hospital in a coma in Perth, Australia. My husband and I were in Thessaloniki and about to collect a hire car to travel around Greece researching a chapter for Lonely Planet's European guides. Fortunately my sister in Perth reached me in time, and we had internet access and the airline schedules were on our side. We managed to get on flights that day from Thessaloniki to Athens, Athens to Dubai, and Dubai to Perth, and were in Australia the next day. A week later and my mother remained in a coma, yet we had a job to start in Greece. As we drove around the country, my thoughts continually returned to my mum: would she recover? when she came out of the coma would she have brain damage? would she know me? would she forgive me for not being by her side? would I even see her again? and what if she died? My mum and I had enjoyed choosing and writing postcards when we travelled together, particularly on the long trip we took around Europe a few summers before, after my dad had died of cancer. We'd spend a couple of hours at the end of each day's sightseeing at an outdoor cafe, a glass of white wine at hand, people-watching and writing postcards. The only way life could have been more perfect would have been if dad was still alive.
During our travels in Europe, my mother and I seemed to spend more time addressing the postcards than writing them, the world around us proving more distracting than we anticipated. And we'd laugh each time it was time to move on to another country, because we still had a stack of unwritten cards with stamps and scrawled addresses, and nothing more. We'd furiously scribble some notes at the airport then run around trying to find a postbox to send them. Or beg the on-board staff to post them when they got back home. In April and May, 2006, as my husband and I drove around Greece researching a guidebook, my mum back in Australia in a coma, I would write her a postcard a day, sharing my everyday experiences, my secret thoughts, my fears that I might never see her again, as much as my ideas for the things we'd do together upon her recovery. I just wanted her to know that I was thinking of her. Fortunately, three weeks later she was out of the coma, speaking a little, slowly remembering, and (miraculously) rapidly recovering. I was by her side a month later. The postcards were in the drawer beside her hospital bed. I never did ask her if the nurses or anyone had read her the cards. Knowing she was well enough now to read them was enough. But now I wonder: does anyone read the postcards when we send them?
As we drive around Cyprus I notice stands of postcards outside souvenir shops everywhere. The spinning racks are stacked full of kitsch cards, of archaeological sites, old men playing backgammon at cafes, and old ladies dressed in black riding donkeys, in the Greek-speaking south, and in the Turkish-speaking north, of archaeological sites, whirling dervishes, and everyday scenes that are more Turkish than Cypriot. In these days of email, online trip journals and travel blogs, does anyone send postcards anymore I wonder. I used to be a postcard writer, when I travelled for pleasure rather than work. There's nothing I enjoyed more than buying a bunch of cards and whiling away a couple of hours at an al fresco cafe on a lively plaza somewhere writing to my family and friends. It was as much a way for me to stay in touch and let my loved ones know that I was thinking about them as it was a chance for me to distill my experiences and observations and instill them in my own mind. Does anyone still send postcards?
I was delighted to discover that Budget Travel asked readers on their forum the other day: Do you still send postcards? To which they received a whopping 300+ comments! Way back in February, starting on Valentines Day to be precise, I began writing a series of posts on postcards, inspired by seeing racks of faded cards during our travels in Crete, starting with Postcards: does anyone still send them? Then I wrote Postcards: our processes of selection and identity formation (about how we choose postcards that say something about who we are, or perhaps the person we want people to think we are); Postcards: to my Mum (about the cards I sent daily to my mother in 2006 while she was in a coma in Australia and I was finishing a job researching a book in Greece, and thinking about her on those long daily drives); Postcards: sending secrets (about Frank Warren's wonderful PostSecret community art project that has become a global phenomenon); and then Postcard stories, where, due to the positive response from my readers (of course I didn't get 300 responses like Budget Travel, but it was enough for my modest little blog!), I decided to write a feature story for publication on the resurgence in popularity of sending postcards. In Postcard stories I put out a call for comments and asked a number of questions that I hoped would inspire you to think about how you feel about postcards, why you send them, whether you keep them, and so on. I'm still developing that article and incorporating the many comments that I've already received (and quoting you, so please let me know if you don't want me to use your name), however, I would still love to hear from more of you, as I don't really think we've really got to the heart of it yet. Not even in the many comments over at Budget Travel. I'd really love people to think a bit more deeply about it. So if you love postcards as much as I do, please take a look at the Postcard stories post again, and leave comments at the end of that post or here. Or email me privately if you prefer to remain anonymous.
