Connecting the world with writing

Postcard and stamps

Connecting the world with writing

Postcrossing. Bookcrossing. And the old fashioned handwritten letter.

POSTCROSSING

I have been living in the UK since 2013, and in my life I have been fortunate enough to have visited many countries in 4 different continents (still need to get more travelling under my belt and increase that to all continents!). And one thing that I’ve always done, when I am visiting a new country, is send back home to my family and/or friends, a written postcard.

I’ve always felt it’s a nice gesture, that you are remembering and taking the time from your adventures/holidays to write to the ones you love. And I know how great it feels to receive one in the post too! So, I want to share the same smile and heart warmth as much as possible.

Back in 2016, my sister in law introduced me to postcrossing. Now you may already know what this is, but in case you don’t, here it goes: Postcrossing is a worldwide community of people that share postcards! It’s so simple and yet, so effective!

You create your account online, at https://www.postcrossing.com/ and request your first address. Once you do, you’ll get to see the bio and “requests”/likes of your first recipient, and from there, it’s handwritten love and sharing!

Since 2016 I have sent postcards to all over the world and received them too. On the latest ones I’ve written you could find in the post box of a 74yo man from Germany, a 55yo woman from rural Russia, a 20yo girl from Japan and so many others in between London and there!

It’s always nice to read about their favourite postcards, what they’d like to add to their collection and check the nice messages left upon receiving a thoughtful 10.5cm x 10.5cm piece of card. And I also love selecting the perfect card for each individual. It makes me smile and discover super cool postcards!

If you’re not registered yet, I highly recommend doing it. You can send one postcard a year, if that’s your style, or you can get in a groove and write a handful a week, and see as many arriving with your post and imagining the life of the person who lives in a faraway country that took the time to write to YOU.

I am hooked on writing these and would love to know if there are any postcrossers amongst our lovely Scribe Tribe!

 

BOOKCROSSING

If you live in London or a city with an underground transport system, you may have come across one of these random acts of kindness on the Tube, or at a park. A stranger leaves a loved booked purposely behind, so another can pick it up and be immersed in the world created between those 2 covers. But did you know this is a community and not counting the actual leaving-the-book-for-a-stranger-to-pick-up part you can also exchange books, or send a book to another person directly?

You can see a book’s journey, if it’s one of the tracked items. You can swap books with people who have similar reading taste. You can send your favourite book to many people.

And all you need to do is log in to https://www.bookcrossing.com/ to find out more.

 

OLD FASHIONED HANDWRITTEN LETTER

If none of these seems appropriate to you, but you still want to bring a smile to someone’s face, I’d suggest the old-fashioned handwritten letter to a family member! Yes, you may talk to them on the phone every day, FaceTime/Zoom as much as you can, but imagine how loved they will feel by receiving a letter in the post! I know my boyfriend has received a letter from his sister and kept it safe in the back of his Kobo (a kind of kindle). Now I have not read the letter, nor want to, but the fact he has kept it safe and not thrown it away after reading shows how much he appreciated the gesture! And they do speak every single day on the phone.

Or, if you’re feeling a bit bolder, write to a neighbour of yours, or a local coffee place just sharing a nice moment/memory you have with them. I bet you’d make a friend for life.

Let me know if you get this posted and the reaction!

 

In the next weeks, I will share more ways you can use your gift of beautiful handwriting and love of words to spread joy, but in the meantime, let me know if you try any of these 3!

Tania, Community Manager

What not to do during a pandemic

What not to do during a pandemic

From the 18th to the 24th of May it’s Mental Health Awareness Week in the UK. And what a time to remind ourselves to check up on our mental health!

In the midst of a pandemic we are surrounded by rules, and expectations we sometimes have no idea where they came from or even who set them.

We know, or at least are trying to understand, government guidelines. We stayed at home. We washed our hands. We had the unbelievable gift of time bestowed upon (most of) us. But what does all that mean in reality?

And then, the “outside” expectations. Social media connecting us all, and making us all feel so incredibly useless and like we’re failing. And keeping us so busy all the time, most of us are not processing our feelings and thoughts about the state of the world.

How? Well, read on…

Early on, it started with all these online free classes that started to take place. Gym owners, PTs, dancers, gym aficionados, all left out of jobs, decided to take their gifts online, and a new form of exercise came to be: Zoom classes and Instagram lives of all sorts. From Yoga to HIIT, boxing and ballet, you name it! And we enrolled them all.

Then came the bread-making. It turns out sourdough is not that hard to bake, and there’s something lovely about eating bread you made yourself. Not to speak of the wonders of watching dough rise. Yep, we have time, don’t we? Anything but staying alone with our thoughts.

Soon after, haircuts, new gardening skills, books checked out of the to-read lists (even if we can’t remember the storyline all that well), and creative writing. All the plays, poems, stories, we felt we needed to start and perhaps didn’t really want to finish. I mean, art comes from the heart, and that little honey is a bit mangled right now.

Not to mention, we are probably feeling like we watched ALL of Netflix by now.

And still… at the end of the day, we are still left feeling overwhelmed, afraid and unbalanced. We have not processed all of this. And you know what? That is ALRIGHT!

The sooner you realise you have NOTHING to prove to anyone, not now, not when the pandemic is over, the better it is for you and your mental health.

So, don’t feel like you need to declutter your closet and be all Marie Kondo. Or learn a new language, read all the books you own plus the ones you can afford to get delivered. Or write a novel. Also, and this may come as a shock to you, you don’t need to participate in yet another Zoom quiz night!

You can take things at your pace. You can read, if you feel like it, or listen to some amazing audiobooks if you can’t concentrate on the pages, or even, ditch the book and try meditating for the first time in over 50 years of living (there are some gorgeous apps and Youtube videos to help you get started).

You can have a cup of tea by the window, getting some sun (and vitamin D! Just please, wear sunscreen. Seriously, I could do a whole other post on how much you ALWAYS need sunscreen!), listen to your favourite song paying attention to instruments you may not even know are there (I recently found a little cymbal in Bohemian Rapsody I SWEAR has never been there before) or you can simply call your mom and have a nice chat or share recipes and funny stories from growing up.

Just take time. To be with who you choose to be with. To be with you. To be.

And now that we are slowly easing out into some sort of normalcy, please remember to check in on anxiety levels. More people outside can be a trigger, and a concern and we should all, as much as possible, still be inside. I won’t stop hammering this: it’s ok to not be as productive as you think everyone else is being. It’s ok to take things at your own pace. As the famous saying goes: You do you, boo.

And just as a closer, and to remind you to be forgiving and keep your mental health in check, here’s some advice I picked up from this article:

  1. Asking for help isn’t weakness
  2. Forgive yourself
  3. Hard work isn’t a cure
  4. Processing takes time
  5. Shame doesn’t get the final word
  6. We’re ALL adjusting

We are all adjusting. We are all together. We all are.

Tania, Community Manager