Dear Everyone ~
April was National Card and Letter Writing Month (NCLWM) month. My “outgoings,” as Constance McCarthy refers to hers, were slightly slim (though not anemic). I am delighted to have received a very large handful of creative missives & postcards from far & wide, and close by. I’d like to share a few with you, for their diversity, their charm, and their reflecting of their senders’ generosity of epistolary spirit.
Deborah from Monterey sent me a triple-tiered letter cake. The centerpiece of her confection is the official postcard of my shopfront (shown at top), lavishly & brilliantly embellished by Deborah. She went so far as to open my front door, revealing a veritable wonderful of papery surprise. The printed caption on the back of the BZS postcard, illustrated by my friend Janet Bouldin, reads: Welcome to my world, wherein all you encounter has been made or selected by me, for you. I am aswoon at the world Deborah created for me! But wait, of course there is more.
She swaddled the postcard in a furoshiki-style plain paper wrap (with an hilarious post-it note attached, acknowledging her self-adhesive postage fiasco) inside a decorated hand-folded envelope! Oh, my!
Alyson Kuhn, my postal muse, also happens to live in Monterey…and it occurred to me to e-introduce her to Deborah without delay! (Late-breaking news: they may be meeting at their local stationery store today.)
Cat Bennett was sojourning in Florence, Italy, in March. At the end of April, I received her large-ish postcard, selected on her visit to the Basilica di Santa Croce. Even on a postcard, Cat was able to tell me quite a bit about her travels and add a whimsical watercoloured lemon branches. Receiving this was a waft of spring—I could almost smell the blossoms.
I have been postcard pals with Bonnie, who lives in Chicago, for nearly ten years. We write to each other infrequently… and whenever I receive a postcard from her, it’s a treasure. Back in February, she travelled to Oaxaca. This postcard is from the Museo de Filatellia (stamp museum) a.k.a MUFI. She writes (& asterisks) **they have Frido Kahlo’s letters to her doctor—on original hotel stationery.
The stamps themselves are also a work of art. They may be the stampiest stamps I’ve ever seen! Not only is the philatelist looking at his album with his magnifying glass, but the elbow of his jacket seems to have been patched with stamps. Note the envelope floating behind his head, which actually has a stamp on it! The seal printed at upper left declares the stamp to have been issued for World Philatelic Day. When I enlarged the stamp to show Alyson, she commented that “stamps on stamps” is a real collecting specialty. Philatelic fabulousness!
Back to hotel stationery, George in Whitefish Bay writes to me regularly on sheets from his extensive collection. And when he runs out of room on the hotel lettersheet, he continues his thoughts on pages that feel like onion skin, but I think is tracing paper. It has a fabulous crinkle when I unfold and flatten it to read, and then when I refold to place it back into the envelope. He always writes with his favourite fountain pen and rarely uses the same ink colour. I have to wonder whether he keeps some sort of register or record. (Aside: George & I still have not met! He is truly a penpal, and a prolific one.)
Constance in Machesney Park is an avid correspondent, and it was her IG post that reminded me in the first place that National (Card &) Letter Writing Month was upon us. She is exemplary about dating her correspondence, even a postcard. And in April, she numbered her outgoing pieces of mail, on the flap of her tiny rubber-stamped envelope-in-heaven. I have number 44, and a Letter Carriers: We Deliver! stamp.
She writes “I’m sending a LOT of mail this month, so I’m like a rat on an epistolary treadmill.” I, for one, would buy multiple copies of a postcard showing a rat on an epistolary treadmill! I asked Constance how many pieces of mail had gone out in April, and her response was an astounding 136! She added that she maintains a register, only for the month of April, including not only when she writes to each recipient, but also what card/stationery she uses and what items she encloses!
Melanie in Florida & I have an ongoing postal exchange (it’s like a sketchbook exchange, only through correspondence). Occasionally, it can be weeks and weeks, and weeks, without either of us sending each other mail. This recent envelope made up for her long-ish lapse, containing several missives in one, written over the course of three months. Melanie hand-folded the outer envelope, which measures 8 x 8, from a sheet of screen-printed wrapping paper that feels as soft as (and may well be) cotton. Ensconced was her watercolour on handmade paper, a second hand-folded envelope with a mini missive on Rivoli Rose, and a notecard she had chosen on a trip to Mexico.
Will, my beloved mail-carrier, further endears himself to me when he presents these letters & postcards. He can tell he is delivering delight!
Stationery supplies that sing and surprise
May your May be brimming with epistolary inspiration, Bari