I find pleasure in hours and hours of strolling around a bookstore or a stationery shop, buying books and gifts and ribbons and envelopes and beautiful wrapping papers—oh, and of course, cards with neat design and wordings!

When everyone can send you an email, a tweet or a Facebook message in just one click, I find the joy in receiving postcards from friends in faraway places. These postcards will be a bit crumpled when it reach me, but this just adds up to the authenticity of the thoughts, the journey, and the experiences—something that has traveled the distance of hundreds or even thousands of miles. The crumpled postcards are just the best and I love them oh-so-dearly.

There are times when I am in a bookstore or a stationery shop, and I’ll spot a nice card and my thoughts will go to a certain person, a friend, an acquaintance, a colleague, and I will just grab that card and mail it away. I’m not really into sending cards and packages for special occasions in someone’s life. Birthdays, graduations, promotions, weddings—err, no. Not really. What I love the most is just to send cards and packages on an ordinary day. Like a totally random day. And for no particular reason.

A lot like love, no? You don’t have to wait for a special day to show your love, and you don’t have to reason about why you love someone.So, my pile of cards and packages, fly, fly, fly, and fly away. Travel the distance safely, and please tell the people who receive you all that I care about them, I am thinking of them, and I wish them well.

hanny

18 Responses

  1. So true. I too send postcards to some friends, and I LOVE receiving them. I really find written words are very personal. I always smile when I find something in my mailbox πŸ™‚

  2. Beautifully said, and I love the postcard with “type” written on it especially πŸ™‚ you are a treasure holding onto tradition despite waves of technology, I love it, you make me smile.

  3. You just made me want rush to a bookstore and get a random postcard πŸ™‚ I do miss the anxiety of waiting for a birthday/lebaran postcard in the mailbox when I was a little boy.

  4. Yeah, like usually.
    I agree with you that the postcard or letter is more interesting than email…
    Hmm… Can i give you the postcard? May be it’s interesting for us πŸ™‚

  5. setuju sekali… kartu nama selalu bisa memberi nyawa dan jiwa sendiri dalam menyapa, membagi cerita dan merunut kisah….. nostalgia, tentang waktu, dan tentang momen bisa terabadikan dan terekam sampai lusuh dalam sebuah kartu dan kertas… Aku selalu percaya, suatu hari, kertas menjadi apa yang dirindukan dunia. Meski dunia kini terlalu asyik menikmati Wall E dan Battleship, suara gesekan kertas seperti jauh lebih menarik daripada suara ngik ngik mesin saling berseteru. ^__^

    Mba Hanny, blog berada disini ini, sekarang kian berbeda dan membuatku pangling sempat… dan sungguh tidak pernah berbeda, homy dan cozy… Mba tahukah? sampai hari ini, aku masih terus menemukan inspirasi menulis dan mencintai karya dari blog beradadisini ini… semoga, tulisan dan penggemar karya mba, selalu bisa bertemu sampai tua (jika diperkenankan)… Menulis adalah abadi, itu yang aku temukan di sini ^__^

  6. Everytime I go to out of town, I’ll buying the post cards and send it to my friends. May be same like you, we found a happiness inside that stuff.

  7. There are few things as special to me as a handwritten letter. A few short years ago I moved far away from my home city. I wrote letters to one friend about my adventure living in the wilderness on top of a mountain. ( I remember one was written on a plain white restaurant placemat! ) When I came back, we met up for coffee and with tears in her eyes she told me how much she treasured those letters. It meant so much to her and she had saved them in a special box.
    We do live in a cyber world now and though it has it’s great offerings, like meeting people like you via blogging, i think it has driven us further away from small yet simple pleasures and connections of the heart.

If you made it this, far, please say 'hi'. It really means a lot to me! :)

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Do it because it’s fun. Because it brings you joy; because it’s meaningful to you. Do it because it gives you simple tiny pleasures. Do it because it makes you smile.
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I took another digital detox this weekendβ€”I limited myself to a 5-minute screen time on Saturday and Sunday to quickly check my business account. I closed my social media account for the rest of the days.
Hanny illustrator
Hi. I'm HANNY
I am an Indonesian writer/artist/illustrator and stationery web shop owner (Cafe Analog) based in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. I love facilitating writing/creative workshops and retreats, especially when they are tied to self-exploration and self-expression. In Indonesian, 'beradadisini' means being here. So, here I am, documenting lifeβ€”one word at a time.

hanny

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