Little Rectangles Packed with Intention
To Mail or not to Mail
What’s this, what’s this? A Monday missive?
Yes, it is true that this is usually a Sunday newsletter. And it is true that it’s Monday. But, you know, I’m the boss of this newsletter and I pushed the deadline by a day. And no, it’s not because all of a sudden it was 10p and I hadn’t written a word yet and then I thought, “Eh, tomorrow is fine.” What are you implying?!
Anyway, enjoy this special Monday version of the newsletter. (That’s the only thing special about it; it’s Monday.)
I’m a postcard sort of person.
Most people who know me probably know that. I relish buying them. I love sending them. Cross-town or cross-country. I adore receiving them. I pin them to cork boards. I stick them to my fridge with quirky magnets. They are shareable, duplicable, 4x6 inch (usually) works of art and sometimes I frame them as such.
In the last month—this birthday month full of activities—I’ve bought around 20 postcards. There are more to come. I have plans to go to The Met this coming weekend. I wouldn’t dare leave without a postcard or seven.
Postcards are beautiful in their simplicity. If you deign to send them, you have to be economical in your word usage. There’s only so much space on the back of a 4x6 inch card and, if you are actually mailing it, half of that space is taken up by a stamp and an address. Even if you do write across the whole thing, say to stick inside a gift, there still isn’t much space. You have to be thoughtful about your message—not so much in what the message says but in how it’s said. It’s a fun challenge. It’s a good exercise. It’s a beautiful moment of connection. Someday, it might also be an important historical document.
I don’t actually know when this love of postcards developed or where it came from. I’m guessing it’s inexplicably tied to my love of letter writing, a habit I developed when I was eight or nine and started going to sleep away camp. Now, I grew up on the West Coast and camps there tend to be much shorter than their East Coast counterparts, usually just a week at a time. I’d still manage to get two or three letters written in my free time and sent to my parents by Wednesday and they would manage to get me a care package to me…which they likely took straight to the post office after dropping me off so it would arrive while I was still at camp. (It was candy. All candy.)
Letter writing, of course, is a bit harder. It’s not something that many people do consistently anymore, partially because there are so many other ways to communicate. I, myself, used to write letters to a lot more people but that has whittled its way down to just one pen pal, whomst I cherish very much. Unlike a postcard, a letter gives the gift of space. But there is an ask in return. It asks for more time. It’s time I’m willing to give but it’s time that requires more negotiation. And hand and wrist dexterity. I write by hand more than a lot of people I know. I write postcards and letters, of course. I take notes by hand when at all possible. I write myself little sticky notes. I write in a physical planner and a physical idea book. I journal. I make lists by hand. I usually write the first draft(s) of poems by hand. I don’t write full plays long-form but I often write scenes by hand here-and-there. Or, if I’m stuck, I write single lines over and over until whatever comes next finally works its way from my brain to the pen. Sometimes, I write parts of the newsletter by hand first. Yet, even with that much practice, it’s not like I’m writing all day everyday. My hand gets tired very quickly. Writing one ten-page letter needs a lot more hand shake-outs and rests than the natural break that comes between one postcard and the next.
Considering handwriting helps develop hand strength, I suppose we could look at it as a form of exercise. In my estimation, that elevates the whole practice. Next time your doctor asks when you last worked out, tell them when you last wrote a sticky note. That seems totally acceptable to me.1
For all its hindrances—sore hands, tight forearm muscles, time, expensive stamps—letter and postcard writing is so important to me. Like many things in my life that feel ingrained in my DNA, what was a habit of circumstance morphed into a ritual. The whispers that it’s time to send another round of postcards come from deep within me, echoing through the labyrinth of my relationships, bouncing back to say, “Remember, I am here. Send me a note to show that you remember.” [Gladly.]
Getting mail is fun. Sending mail is also fun. Maybe more fun, if you're me. It’s not necessarily easy to put the feeling of sending a postcard into words. There’s a little spark in my brain when I drop one into a mailbox, probably because I know from personal experience what a lifeline receiving a little piece of mail can be.
We live in a world full of communication options, a good portion of which sit in the palm of our hands. Because of that, we’ve been trained that responses should be as immediate as possible. Received a text message? Within minutes, you better have responded. A work email on a Saturday afternoon? They know you’ve seen it so they’ll expect a response before Monday. We’ve also been trained, then, that if there isn’t an immediate response the person must be mad at us or dead or something. There is no other explanation, certainly. It’s likely whatever is happening in work emails or text messages or Instagram DMs or or or is not the emergency it (everything) is treated as.2 Stands to reason, then, that it would be okay to slow down. Slowing down is good, important. And yet, in this context, slowing down comes with a cost. There’s a mental and emotional cost in deciding to take your time responding, either for you as you deal with your day and the horrors or for the other person who is dealing with their day and the horrors and also waiting on whatever you have to say. Or both.
This is exactly why I love a postcard. It takes time. It takes time to write. It takes time to send and arrive. If there is a response, it takes time to write and send and arrive back. A postcard is lower stakes communication. At least in my view. In my view, a postcard from me is a little physical sign that I am thinking of you and I am here for you. It doesn’t usually require a response (I won’t say never) because the point of it is to be a tangible memento specifically for you. Sometimes responding to whatever, anything is too hard. Lives are busy and there is usually more going on with someone then we will know about. Sometimes mental health is at play. I admit, all of these reasons are true for me when certain communication falls by the wayside. So, when a form of communication isn’t instantaneous, it intimates that the response also doesn’t have to be instantaneous. When I send a postcard, I hope that I’m reminding you of connection and giving you a gift of time.
These little 4x6 inch cards can do so much for others. I’ve thought so much about that. (Obviously.) But what I have spent less time thinking about, surprisingly enough, is about what they do for the sender.
Recently, in his newsletter The Querent, author Alexander Chee wrote a post about finding a box of postcards in his New York apartment. Chee is a beautifully reflective writer. I haven’t read much of his work—just How To Write an Autobiographical Novel3—and have only recently started reading his newsletter but already, much of what he writes takes my breath away. So, I was tickled when this installment came to my inbox.
The box he found was filled with postcards he received but also, with postcards he never sent. Some were already written. And addressed. For old friends. Chee says many describe events happening in the 1990s, when he returned to New York after grad school. Of taking the postcards from the box and lining them up on the carpet, he says:
“Laid out on the floor, the cards felt like a message for me from the person I used to be.”
It’s wonderful to get a surprise reminder to explore something so seemingly mundane a little deeper.
By and large, I send my postcards. I send them for the purpose of love and connection. But I hadn’t realized I send and also collect postcards as documentation of my own humanity. These postcards are glimpses of who I am at any given time. Little rectangles packed with intention. We all hope, I would venture a guess, that we’re thought of and that we’ll be remembered when we’re not around. We’re all trying to make a difference in some way, whether that’s in small interpersonal ways or larger cultural/social ways. We all attempt to leave a mark somewhere, on someone, on something. Proof of existence.
Proof of existence feels more and more precarious. It’s hard to know whether what we say and do, who we are, will be maintained, suppressed, or wiped out completely. Much of my existential dread has to be with uncertainty—not knowing what to hold onto for myself, for others, for the past and present and future. I wonder about what I’ve created and am creating, what these ideas that are swirling around in my head mean. If they mean anything. I feel unsettled as I try to figure out what empirical things to store, to hoard, to protect, to loan, to share, to give away, to gift. What goes in lockboxes? What goes in storage? What goes in the one-and-only, albeit large, closet in my apartment? What belongs written on my skin? What should get added to the frequency emanating from my heart, from the waves from my brain?
Have you ever noticed, as time marches on and we get older, there are always more questions than answers?
So, I don’t know. I don’t know the answer to any single “what?” I expect you don’t either.
When the questions are unanswerable, I return to the simple things I can do. I can send postcards that are moments of connection. I can let you know that I know you are there, I’m thinking about you, I’m remembering you, you are important to me. And—this is uncomfortable for me—I can also say, I’m here too. Please remember me, please think of me.
We are each other’s proof of existence. Even if that proof is volatile in other places, it is solid here. Sent or not sent. Whether it’s a silly little 4x6 inch piece of paper with a sarcastic quip on the front and the list of things I’ve dropped lately on the back or is me having the thought of you, the intention to hold you close symbolically, that proof is concrete.
“And then it was time for dinner with my old friend, as I had made plans with him coincidentally. I told him about the card at dinner and invited him to come and see it if he wanted; it seemed almost like an ambush to bring it to the restaurant.
And after I gave it to him and he read it, and I apologized, he said, “We have all written this card, baby, and I don’t mean to make you seem any less exceptional by saying that,” and then he hugged me close, and we both wept.”
Too on the decaying nose?
THANK YOU for reading. Very seriously, thank you. If you’d like to learn more about the newsletter, here’s my About page. It’s about…me…and this…newsletter.
Paid subscriptions are always nice so if you want to upgrade, I wouldn’t stop you. Or, if a one time support is more your thing, my venmo is @samjeancoop. No matter what—paid, not paid, a postcard sender or a postcard receiver—I’m just grateful you’re here.
Sharing is also nice. Sharing is a great kind of support. Sharing is, in fact, caring.
I am not a doctor and this is not medical advice. This is written by someone who does not enjoy going to the doctor for oh, so many reasons.
Of course, there are sometimes emergencies in your emails and text messages. The likelihood of emergencies in this time seems to be increasing moment-by-moment.
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