Earlier this month was the 185th anniversary of issue of the Penny Black stamp. Did I mark it? No. An old blog post of mine mentioned giving myself the day off from writing letters on World Letter Writing Day. Seems gimmicky, a one-off, a one-night stand. While a brief intimacy may be a good thing... penfriendship isn't a one-time wonder. To me, it is a connection, a conversation, dialogue, contains meaning, emotion, compassion, thought, humanity, friendship. When I write a letter, I put a piece of my soul on the page, but if there is no response, no acknowledgement, unrequited, then I am lessened. I sent a fan-letter to an author several years ago, but afterwards felt empty. I have also written to two actors, but have had acknowledgement and thanks. According to Meatloaf, 2 out of 3 ain't bad. There are snail mailers out there who've never participated in the February daily snail mail challenges. Those 2 February projects seem to be more about checkbox ticking rather than anything meaningful. While I have taken part in both, supported both, promoted both, the one thanks me by having the software automatically marking my posts as spam, and the other did not allow me to correct outdated information (and was just one of the reasons I deleted my account there) To send a postal response internationally for something that barely said anything now costs over £3 (currently over 4 USD). Sadly, I cannot justify spending more than £3 on postage just for a postcard, very often. Such a shame as I'll unlikely not be sending my full allowance of Postcrossing postcards
