Through postcards, a window to the world — and myself

I like a good text or Snapchat as much as your next millennial.

OK, that’s not true. I hate Snapchat.

The point is, I recognize the convenience of electronic communication — but the old-fashioned part of me that prefers to read my news in print and fills my apartment with as many “book books” as possible also really enjoys snail mail.

When I heard about the postcard-exchange community “Postcrossing,” I was intrigued.

Get an address — anywhere in the world. Send a postcard. When your postcard arrives, you get one — from anywhere in the world.

It’s not a pen-pal project but rather completely random. And once you get immersed, you can come home most days and find a card or two in the mail.

When I paired this concept with my love of travel and learning about people and places different than me and mine, it didn’t take much to convince me to give Postcrossing a try. I stocked up on some touristy Iowa postcards and sent off my first batch, to people in Germany, Russia and the U.S.

The first card I received was from a girl named Sorarin in Malaysia who loves reading “To Kill a Mockingbird.”

I was hooked.

I’ll admit that at first, my interest in Postcrossing was mostly selfish. I saw sending postcards as a means to an end — I had to send one to receive one back.

And I got some great ones — especially when I updated my profile on the Postcrossing website to tell people about my interests and what I wanted to hear from them.

Mary in New York sent me a mildly inappropriate card depicting a clown and cows with women’s bodies. Chuang in Taiwan, Marc-André in Germany and Ludmila in Russia sent cat postcards; Jackie in Minnesota and Annemiek in the Netherlands sent book postcards; Natasja in the Netherlands, Snizhana in Ukraine and Magdalena in Scotland sent sunflower cards; and Michael in Germany, Cecilé in South Africa and Sarka in the Czech Republic sent elephant cards.

And when I turned each card over, I learned little slices of these people’s lives.

Chuang in Taiwan wrote about his 15-20 cats. Silvia in Spain told me (in Spanish!) about the latest book she’s reading. Marc-André in Germany told me about his fox terrier, Marla. André in Portugal shared his dream of being a journalist in the U.S. Elvira in Germany wrote about the famous red wine made in her region. Daniel in Baton Rouge wrote about enjoying ham radio. Anastasia in Belarus shared a recipe for potato pancakes. Eugenia wrote about having just received the news that she’d have to leave Russia for her husband’s job.

Alina in Russia wrote to me about lovers, and Ludmila in Russia about frosty winters.

Rachel from Malaysia drew me a cat holding a postcard. Brandon in St. Louis wrote me a poem.

It didn’t take me long to realize that I could make someone’s day with my cards in the same way these made mine.

Now, I eagerly wait for each day someone receives one of my cards, because that doesn’t just mean I’ll get a card soon — it also means I can send another one. That’s one of my favorite moments with this project, receiving a new name and address and getting to read about the next person who will receive a card from me.

Now, rather than automatically sending off a card showing an Iowa cornfield with a scribbled “hello,” I learn about the person I’m writing to and try to match a card to his or her interests, based on their Postcrossing profiles.

I’ve sent civil rights postcards, cards with historical photos, beach scenes, cards with romantic scenes, animal, food and wine cards, vintage travel cards, plenty of cards depicting book covers and more, based on the interests of the people whose addresses I receive.

And, when they ask a specific question of the people sending them cards, I try to oblige — telling them about my day, my favorite book or quote or, a favorite with some, a secret.

It’s surprisingly therapeutic to write a secret to a girl your age in Russia or a woman in Oregon whom you’ll almost definitely never meet.

All of a sudden, I was bonding with strangers with one-sided conversations about cats, wine, books, music, traveling, doubts and fears and triumphs and more.

I was enjoying giving of myself to this project, rather than just taking from it.

Still, though, there’s no getting over the feel of coming home at the end of the day, opening my mailbox and digging through junk mail and bills to see another postcard has arrived. I don’t think I’ll ever get tired of that.

As of today, in the several months I’ve been participating in this project, 63 postcards have made it from my hands to someone else’s mailbox. I’ve received 61 — there likely are more in the mail headed my way. I have 10 that are somewhere in the world, traveling — or I will, after I get a pile in the mail this week.

The list of cities, states and countries I’ve connected with, either by sending or receiving a postcard, continues to grow. Russia. Germany. Missouri. The Netherlands. Ukraine. Taiwan. Florida. The Czech Republic. South Africa. Oregon. Malaysia. Portugal. Indonesia. Brazil. Illinois. Belgium. Finland. California. Japan. South Korea. Ireland. Nevada. Poland. Switzerland. Italy. Florida. India. Turkey. Belarus. Slovakia.

It blows my mind.

A quick search on the Postcrossing site shows that, as far as I can tell, there are no Jefferson users on Postcrossing. I found fewer than a dozen users in the general area.

How cool would it be to start flooding the world with western Iowa postcards — and to start flooding western Iowa with missives from all around the world?

I’ve become a fixture at the Carroll post office — and had the pleasure of learning that a while back when I got up to the counter and saw the woman there already had the international and postcard stamps ready for me. She knew what I wanted.

It costs $1.15 to send a postcard to another country — and just 34 cents to send one within the U.S. using a postcard stamp.

Some might argue that this can become an expensive hobby, when you add in the cost of the postcards themselves and when you consider that some people send thousands of these cards through the years.

I think it’s worth it, though.

This project has grown from a simple hobby to become a big part of my life.

More than the stories about people’s cats, their daily routines, their favorite books, I needed the reminder that people are good. That they have stories to tell. That they care.

And that all of us, when it comes down to it, aren’t that different, whether we live in Belarus or South Korea or Iowa.

That comes through loud and clear in the sometimes-tattered postcards I receive, whether they depict an elephant or a cityscape — or a naked cow-lady.