Snail mail: dear friend

I have a backlog of letters that I want to write to my dear friends and pen pals all over the world, replies to letters sent to me as far back as April this year. First I was hindered by the carpal tunnel syndrome that dogged my pregnancy, and more recently by an extremely demanding albeit adorable little daughter who likes to spend her days in my arms (somewhat precluding letter-writing).

But on the weekend I had a few hours up my sleeve while Madeleine enjoyed cuddles from her Dad, so I began to make a dent in this pile, writing letters, postcards, and packaging up little gifts. Who have you been writing to lately?

Love letters

Why do so many of us love snail mail so much? It's not convenient, it's not immediate, and it's not free. Email can be all of the above. So can IM and even SMS (depending on your plan). So what's so great about the mailbox? A few years ago, we thought the digital age would end snail mail altogether. Like, video killing the radio star all over again. Yet today, the sight of a handwritten letter in the mail makes many people leap for joy. Letter writing projects and cooperatives are springing up all over the world, fuelled by folks who love to stay in touch.

Why?

Is it nostalgia? Do we yearn for the days when things were done slowly, carefully, and by hand?

Or is it the personal touch? Does the sight of pen-on-ink, wonky handwriting and lines through mistakes bring us closer to the writer than their spellcheckers, SMS shorthand and emoticons ever could?

Is it the tactile nature of snail mail? The crunch of autumn leaves underfoot as you walk to the letterbox, the creak as you lift the lid, the texture of that envelope as you hold it in your hand, weighing it without realising you're doing it, judging by thickness and shape what you might find inside.

Or is it as fundamental as novelty? Now that our key mode of written communication is digital, does good, old-fashioned mail simply represent the allure of the unusual?

I don't have the answers. But I can tell you I love receiving mail, AND sending it.

I am not fast. It takes me a while to write to my friends. To think about what I want to say to them and then write it down. To decide what to include with my little letter. To plan how I might make the envelope pretty, something special to receive. I put the 'snail' in snail mail.

These days, I even make snails look speedy. There are many people I want to write to right now, but the carpal tunnel syndrome that has dogged my pregnancy makes it even harder to hold a pen or pencil than it is to type. Soon, my friends, I promise to write to you. Or maybe I will succumb and type my letters for you. But that just wouldn't be the same. Would it?

These photographs are of a wonderful little package I received in the mail last week from my pen pal in Germany, Astrid. She sends the most glorious mail. I love unwrapping the surprises she sends me (so does Ruby the cat). ps. Astrid recently put her creativity to work and opened an Etsy shop. You can find her sweet, handmade items at Flora Likes Soap and if you buy something, tell Astrid I say hello. She is just a lovely person.

Snail mail: in my mailbox (and yours)

Lately I've been drawing pictures on the mail I'm sending. The ladies at my local post office seem to like it. Hopefully my friends will, too.I was inspired to draw pictures on parcels by this wonderful book, posted to ME recently by my dear friend Ruby Blessing. I love Edward Gorey's little graphic stories, and already have two of them at home. How did she know? I can't wait to delve into the wonderful letters inside this book! And look what else arrived in my mailbox last week, all the way from my lovely postal pal Hermine, in Belgium. She sends the sweetest, most creative little parcels, I just love getting them. Then yesterday afternoon I answered the door to the postman and JUST LOOK what arrived, sent from my dear friends Michelle and Kevin in Sydney, who stayed with us just last weekend. I am incredibly spoiled. How about you? What have you found in your mailbox lately? What are you sending to friends?

(ps. As always, if you buy a copy of my novella Airmail, I promise to send you a personal letter in the mail. Just let me know.)

You've got mail

I've got mail, actually. Two lovely surprise packages arrived for me in the post this week. It's amazing how much getting mail can make you smile. On Monday, mail arrived from blogger Katherine of Through My Looking Glass. Such a nice surprise to find a pretty green envelope in my postbox, it had been forwarded on to Melbourne from my old address in Adelaide.

Katherine sent me a little packet of paper mementos from the Finders Keepers markets in Sydney, and guitar lessons. Yes, guitar lessons, for disadvantaged kids in Vanuatu, from the Oxfam Unwrapped project. I was so incredibly touched by her thoughtfulness. Then today when I walked the dog to pick up the mail I discovered a little parcel from a sweet girl in Germany, Astrid. Astrid found me through my blog last year and invited me to be her pen pal. So I ordered dumplings for lunch and opened her latest envelope to explore its contents at leisure. I'm a lucky lass. What arrived for you in the mail lately? Anything good?

The pen pal post

Today I pulled together a little pen pal package for my new friend Hermine in Belgium. It was such a fun treasure hunt! Don't know what I'm talking about? Find out here. This is what I put in the big, padded envelope. The inventory:

* A sprig of pink gum blossoms, purloined from the parklands on my walk * A few pages torn from 1930s children's classic Blinky Bill (a spare copy) * A postcard of Glenelg (a little beachside town in Adelaide) * A cute little airmail-themed gift card * A lovely, hand-drawn postcard on wood, that I bought in New York * Some pretty, coloured tissue paper * A travelling copy of Airmail with the hand-painted bookplate * A chocolate frog from Darrel Lea * A photograph of my mother as a girl, arm raised in a snowball fight * Three marbles (of course!) * A necklace made out of a birthday candle * A polariod self portrait showing my reflection in the tea-kettle * Some cutout pictures of my new home of Adelaide and South Australia * Two fall leaves given to me from my friend in Connecticut * A hand-written letter-excerpt from Airmail covered in international stamps * A cute ribbon with a butterfly in the centre, from Anthropologie * A turquoise, hand-painted wooden egg

(Not pictured) * Three little squares of vintage, yellow, chintz fabric * A 50 cent coin (because all the edges are so pretty) * A letter, telling Hermine about life in Australia

I hope it all makes it to Antwerp safely, and that Hermine likes it!

Sweet snippets from Antwerp

Look what arrived in my mailbox today, all the way from Belgium! Remember two weeks ago when I blogged about old-fashioned ways to keep it personal? One of the things I did was get in touch with Hermine of Journal de Jours, to join her wonderful pen pal project. Today the sweetest little package arrived in the mail from Hermine, lovely snippets of her life in Antwerp. Now it's my turn to send a little Aussie package off to Hermine. Any suggestions as to what I should include? What would you like to see?

Secret letters

If you’ve been reading this blog or if you’ve read my novella Airmail, you’ll know that I’m fascinated by the concept of letter-writing. I love the intimacy of writing something by hand, penning your thoughts or feelings or ideas and releasing them for someone else to read. At times, that someone may even be a total stranger. I love the distances that letters cross, traversing cities, nations, distant roads, even oceans in a matter of days.

Email and instant messaging may have changed the nature of the way we write to each other, but we still write.

And to my mind, one of the most beautiful iterations of letter-writing in recent years has been the growth of the Post Secret community.

Post Secret is simple. People anonymously mail a secret on the back (or front) of a handmade postcard. For the writer, they get their secret off their chest. For the rest of the community, they learn that they are not alone. Time and again, Post Secret teaches us that my secret is, after all, yours as well.

Some of the letters and the stories within stories in Airmail are my own secrets, packaged up in fiction. Some of the secrets belong to my friends. Still others are made up. Most likely, you will never know which is which (although now I've got you guessing).

Mr B has been travelling a lot for work lately, and I really miss him when he's away. So here is a video of Valentine’s Day themed Post Secrets, for your reading and viewing pleasure.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tzq3srbYEUY&w=640&h=480]

Favourite things: stay in touch

Happy Friday, dear friend. So the big move is finally over and we're settled in our wonderful new home in Adelaide. That's great, but I gotta tell you, leaving Queensland simply means I've added just one more State and one more city to my list of Far Away Places Where My Friends Live And I Miss Them. So in honour of staying in touch with the people we love across boundaries, oceans and hemispheres, this Friday I bring you: five old-fashioned, repurposed, or just a little bit kooky ways to make it personal.

1. Send a telegram Ah, the romance of a bygone era. When I arrived at our empty new house on a very wet winter's morning, suitcases under my arm and a furniture delivery truck waiting in the driveway, the telegram at the top of this page was waiting in my mailbox, encased in a lovely, vintage-style yellow envelope.

Ok, I sent it to myself. "Lord Cavendish" is someone I made up from the house we own and dearly love on Cavendish Street in Sydney's Inner West. But I wanted to test out this clever, old-school telegram service, and what better way than to send an inspiring message to myself and Mr B as we embark on our new lives in a new city? It's easy and cheap, so I guess you could say Mission Accomplished. Now I'll be sending telegrams all over the place. I love the vintage feel and the special surprise these 'telegrams' bring to a mailbox. Visit Telegram Stop to join the fun.

2. Commission a (free) portrait Or have a portrait done of someone you love. I've sent a photo of me and Mr B in to Free Crappy Portraits and I can't wait to see the result! I'm hoping it arrives in time for our first anniversary. The site says, "Send any picture you want immortalized by one of our terrible artists." They also encourage you to tell them a bit about yourself, funny, quirky or otherwise.

3. Reach out to a stranger University student Katie is running a little project called Letters From Strangers. The concept is pretty simple. She says: "You send me an anonymous letter, written to a stranger, and a self addressed envelope. I repackage your letter and send it off to a random stranger. Then, I send a random letter from a stranger to you." It's kind of like Postsecret, but more intimate.

4. Get inside the story Put someone you love inside one of the classic stories they enjoy the most. Let me explain. If your friend has a hankering for Mr Darcy (and let's face it, who doesn't), put her in the role of Elizabeth! Now Mildred (or whatever your friend's name may happen to be) can have the halls of Pemberley and the pectorals of Fitzwilliam all to herself. The folks at U Star Books & Novels will change the names of key characters to suit you and your friends. They also have a range of steamy romance novels for you to personalise.

5. Find a penpal Hermine Van Dijck lives in Antwerp, Belgium, and she wants to be your penpal. If you ask her, she will collect and send you a beautiful package of flowers, textiles, notes, whatever she can gather, and the idea is that you will do the same in return. Hermine and I have already been in touch via email, and we're both preparing little packages to send to one another. Take a look at her blog, Journal de Jours, to see the lovely packages sent and received.

That's all for now, folks. Have a great weekend! Yours truly, Naomi

Snail mail: secret airmail

Guess what? Four little letters with four little books are on their way to four of my favourite bloggers. I hope they like the surprise they find in their mailboxes.

A mystery in your mailbox

What would you do if you found a mystery in your mailbox? Where would the mystery take you? Just how powerful is the power of storytelling? Is your world real? Or do you only see the shadows of real, reflected on the walls of a cave? What are the rules to a game of marbles?

Find answers (in just two minutes) here:

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kgGJunx71LY]

Not the answers you were looking for? All will be revealed here. Promise!