Postcards

I love postcards. I’ve kept nearly every single card I’ve received. I keep them together in a couple of different spots. Years and locations mingle in ways life never does. I can go from an artist’s rendering of blueberries on Mount Greylock, MA (thank you Karen Arp-Sandel) to Paris, to the Italian Alps to Mongolia in mere seconds.

I also send them. Some that I make, some that I buy. Sometimes I wonder who enjoys the sending and receiving more. Me the sender, or the recipient.

While in Venezuela I kept a look out for a post office. We were traveling in such remote areas that finding one by chance never happened. I also never found any postcards. The couple of “souvenir shops” we visited didn’t sell any.

So, I made some. I couldn’t stand the thought of going to Venezuela, my first time to South America, without sending anyone a postcard. This is coming from someone who spent a year sending postcards to 20+ people for every place I visited for more than 72+ hours. And, those were all handmade cards–of tree rubbings. (Don’t know that project? Go here.)

I don’t know if they will every arrive. I never found a postoffice, I gave them to our guide with some cash and the hope that he would follow through. So hopefully, fingers crossed, the recipients will get them. At this writing it’s nearly three weeks since I handed them over, so who knows where they are…