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jenettWander in, invite a friend to come along, and chat! (Not sure what's going on? Here, have a brief FAQ.) You can find previous ones in my salon tag. Please take a quick look at the reminders at the bottom of this post, too.
Today is the first day of classes at my place of work, and I'm still a little startled, somehow, about the transition from the laziness of August (when there's almost no one on campus except those of us who have 12 month contracts) to the bustle of the school year. (I have also hit my seasonal "my lungs hate September" moment, so I am not at my best, which is not exactly helping. It's been a very damp summer, and my mold allergies, they are complaining.)
Because of how I spent Saturday, I think this week, I'm going to snag an ideajjhunter brought up a month or so ago, of wanting to talk about relationships, and how to go about finding them or making the most of them.
Not just the romantic ones, but mentoring ones, friendships, teacher and student, parent and child, siblings, colleagues, and all the things that make communities and connections and the families we choose and the ones we don't and connections we make and the ones we don't.
(Why this week? Because I spent Saturday out with some awesome women, met via striking up a conversation in a restaurant in February. We all had a blast, but one of the things we've talked about a lot is how rare those kinds of friendships are in their lives. I have a *lot more* of that kind of interaction than the other four, but most of it is online and separated by distance.)
A few final notes
As noted, the basic thing here is 'leave the conversation better than you found it, or at least not worse'. The FAQ has more help with your choices for comment (DW account, OpenID account, or anonymously) if you need a hand. Or ask, and someone (likely me, but maybe not) will be along to help. We'll work everything else out as we go.
Today is the first day of classes at my place of work, and I'm still a little startled, somehow, about the transition from the laziness of August (when there's almost no one on campus except those of us who have 12 month contracts) to the bustle of the school year. (I have also hit my seasonal "my lungs hate September" moment, so I am not at my best, which is not exactly helping. It's been a very damp summer, and my mold allergies, they are complaining.)
Because of how I spent Saturday, I think this week, I'm going to snag an idea
jjhunter brought up a month or so ago, of wanting to talk about relationships, and how to go about finding them or making the most of them. Not just the romantic ones, but mentoring ones, friendships, teacher and student, parent and child, siblings, colleagues, and all the things that make communities and connections and the families we choose and the ones we don't and connections we make and the ones we don't.
(Why this week? Because I spent Saturday out with some awesome women, met via striking up a conversation in a restaurant in February. We all had a blast, but one of the things we've talked about a lot is how rare those kinds of friendships are in their lives. I have a *lot more* of that kind of interaction than the other four, but most of it is online and separated by distance.)
A few final notes
As noted, the basic thing here is 'leave the conversation better than you found it, or at least not worse'. The FAQ has more help with your choices for comment (DW account, OpenID account, or anonymously) if you need a hand. Or ask, and someone (likely me, but maybe not) will be along to help. We'll work everything else out as we go.
Tags:
Re: family/friends/distance/postcards
Date: 2013-09-05 08:58 am (UTC)Can you tell me more about the postcard project? How did you start? What sort of things do you write? Who do you send to?
Re: family/friends/distance/postcards
Date: 2013-09-06 03:55 am (UTC)Then I finished folding 1000 paper cranes at work and needed a new thing to use as tiny brain breaks. Plus I had a huge stack of postcards that had accumulated over time. There were just over 100 of them. So I picked 10 people, family and friends, addressed and stamped all 100 postcards, and put them in a pile on my desk.
Only, then I had an excuse to buy more postcards? And I kept thinking of more people who I maybe should write to? Or making new friends? It's taken a couple of years to get to where it is now, but it's a good thing in my life. I'm writing to one person in Sweden, one person in Australia, and five people in Canada. There are siblings, grandparents, aunts and uncles, internet friends, friends I used to live near, and one person who was a random match through a pen pal exchange. It's all very random.
Right now I have postcards selected for the next 6 or 7 rounds of mailings, because I maybe accumulated a bunch without really noticing. They all have names and stamps (the forever stamps have been wonderful for this) but don't all have addresses. The top cards do have addressed, and people who I know won't be moving I'll add addresses to the cards a little bit over time, but writing out 300 addresses takes a really long time, and sometimes people move.
Generally I'll address the next card when I'm mailing out the current card.
I don't send mail exactly every month, but it seems to work out to approximately every month. I just do it when I start feeling the need to reach out to people again.
What to write is actually pretty easy. Postcards are small. If I don't have anything to say I usually just write a note talking about what is on the front of the postcard. (This is a picture of a cat. My sister bought me this postcard. My cat does not do this, but I know people who have cats who do. Does your cat do this? I wonder why cats do this.) When I moved I wrote approximately 30 postcards about that.
If I do have something to say I write small and try to get it all in.
I try hard to match postcards to people. Jenett gets cats, spirals, blue things, and a few other things I associate with her. So even if I'm just writing about the postcard it's usually something that is both about me and relevant to the person I'm writing to.
Plus, postcards are easy to find. Any trip I take, any museum I go to, most places that sell art, etsy... I honestly have trouble not buying too many, rather than trouble finding things.
Oh, and also I've started making postcards out of various scrap cardboard. Cereal boxes, cracker boxes, cookie boxes, candy boxes... Anything with nice colors, and a clean inside. I use letter stamps already as it is so I don't worry too much about shape and size, and I'm not sure how I'll end up using some of them because I'm not sure how they'll connect to people for me, but it feels good to have some cards that I made instead of bought.
I have a piece of cardboard just the right size with a round hole in the middle waiting to be drawn on. Not sure what to decorate it with.
People love mail. Even if you address a bunch of cards and then just do one any time you have a few minutes, that's still more often than never.
Just, don't expect everyone to be able to write back? Some people can. Some people send me email, or comments online. Some people tell me when they see me next. Some people I never hear from unless I check in with them online. But, it's about staying in touch and staying connected and letting people know that I'm thinking of them and care about how they are doing. So, getting mail back is really just an extra bonus most of the time.
(I've done Christmas cards before. It's hard to time them right. Halloween cards too, or Thanksgiving ones, or Valentines ones, or Winter ones. Last year I sent out Christmas/Yule/Winter postcards. It was so much easier than it had been in the past because I had the system in place already. Plus I found adorable cards with a Christmas/Winter theme! I'll likely do that again this year.)
Re: family/friends/distance/postcards
Date: 2013-09-06 05:08 am (UTC)Re: family/friends/distance/postcards
Date: 2013-09-06 04:13 pm (UTC)(I buy Christmas cards after Christmas on deep discount and store them for the next year. This lets me start the process earlier without paying the premium for when they first come out.)
Re: family/friends/distance/postcards
Date: 2013-09-06 09:44 pm (UTC)Re: family/friends/distance/postcards
Date: 2013-09-07 07:33 am (UTC)I have a habit of buying message-blank cards from museums & similar places, and use them in preference to birthday and greetings cards, and I already have a little stash of postcards I bought on a visit to this amazing old house that inspired some of my favourite childhood books. Oooh, and actually for a couple of the people I'm thinking of writing to, they would love pictures of the children but aren't online, and I can get a bunch of postcards printed up through Moo using my Flickr pictures.
Re: family/friends/distance/postcards
Date: 2013-09-09 01:48 am (UTC)Also, I'll have to look into Moo and Flickr and postcards at the very least for thinking about Winter Greetings this year, but I've been meaning to send a few people updated pictures of me too. :D
I hope you find sending postcards to be enjoyable. :)