On finding beauty

"There is so much beauty in the world. If you blink, you'll miss it." Shea Glover

"I conducted an independent project, which evidently turned into a social experiment halfway through, regarding beauty at my performing arts high school in Chicago. I want to clarify that my intentions were not to get a reaction out of people. I was simply filming beauty and this is the result."

Image credit: Ismael Nieto, licensed under Creative Commons

Final call to be in my book

Last call, folks, if you want to be in my book! (I hope you do. Please do!)

I've almost finished the first draft, and the research has been so much fun. For anyone who doesn't know, my book is about all the quirky, creative and kind things people are doing (and YOU can do) with snail mail these days.

I've interviewed mail heroes like Rin from Papered Thoughts, founder of Mail Me Art Darren Di Lieto, and artist and zine-maker (and person behind the one-and-only Parcel Ghost) Marissa Falco. I introduce you to an honest-to-goodness fairy post office hidden in a forest; a postcard-related art project that has gone global; places to find pen-pals and join creative mail-swaps; a professional letter-writer; a hidden, stamp-related game on a city's streets; museum exhibits that write letters to visitors; a Rube Goldberg postcard machine; and a modern take on the secret language of stamps. There are more than 100 stories and heroes and resources and ideas in the book, and every single one of them includes inspiration, guidance or links so that YOU can get involved, too.

The book is going to be visually stunning, as I've partnered with a bit of a "secret weapon" photographer and we are in the process of planning everything out. If reading all the stories and ideas in this book doesn't inspire you to pick up a pen and write a letter to Nanna, the photography will.

I want to pepper the book with thoughts and quotes from anyone and everyone who loves snail mail, and that's where you come in!

If you would be so good as to answer the following questions and send them to me, I'll try to put you in the book! (You can be anonymous if you want to, or you can share your name and your blog or ONE social media profile if you'd like to be found by the people reading my book). Just email your answers to one or both of these questions to me at nabulger (at) gmail (dot) com, using the subject heading modern_mail so you don't get lost in the spam folder:

* In this age of digital technology, what's so special about snail mail?

* Who should you write a letter to today, and why?

I'm looking forward to hearing from you!

Yours truly, Naomi xo

Happy Mail Day

∧∧ To welcome us into the new week, I thought I'd share some beautiful mail that I've been receiving lately. Like this "Happy Mail Day" mail-art postcard.

∧∧ And this amazing mail from Yam in Spain, a real life postmistress. Believe it or not, this is the first mail I've ever received from an actual postal worker and that made Yam a bit of a celebrity for me!

Also, she designed her mail-art to work with the stamp, which was an art design by artist Eduardo Chillida, who she also quoted on the back.

∧∧ Then there were these adorable, handmade ceramic magnets from my accidental pen pal (i.e. we became pen pals by accident) Selise from style blog Lovers, Saints & Sailors. Selise is a writer and people who don't pay her to write SHOULD pay her to write because she writes the best letters. Hands down. The BEST.

∧∧ Another friend I recently made online is Micu, who sent this seriously amazing bounty of beautiful mail ephemera all the way from Budapest. Those stamps!

∧∧ THOSE stamps! Micu runs a sweet blog called Mail a Smile, galvanising strangers to send mail-art to people who are sick or sad or stressed or for any other reason, need a smile. That's pretty special, don't you think?

ps. Right now as I type this I am watching a TV show about Tiny Houses. It is so fascinating. Would you ever consider this?

Pre-dawn

I had already been awake for at least an hour.

The hotel bed was one of those lumpy ones that felt like it was bruising my spine, no matter how I twisted and turned. The room was hot and stuffy, even with the AC on as high as it could go, possibly because it was 35 degrees outside and the seal around the windows wasn't great (as evidenced by the fact that the closed blinds had flapped and rattled against the sills all night, waking me out of uneasy slumber with every gust of summer wind).

It was so hot that both children slept only in nappies. Their bare little bodies made time roll backwards: they seemed impossibly young and vulnerable, still my babies for this night, at least.

When at long last the dark weakened under those flapping, banging blinds and the pre-dawn sneaked into the hotel room in stripes of grey, watery light, I took in a giant breath of relief.

To my right, tucked tightly into a ball on his belly, I could see my little boy asleep with his thumb in his mouth and his curly hair wild on the pillow.

Two today.

How am I even a mother? And I started that self-indulgent thing that mothers like to do, thinking to myself: this time last year... this time two years ago... now...

The way he giggles when I tickle him: big, throaty, hearty chuckles. His current obsession with everything vehicular, our days punctuated with "chug" and "zoom" and "broom" and "beep beep beep." Chasing his sister, arm raised, and when I say "No hitting!" he responds "Just kissing, Mummy," and resumes the chase, baby-lips pursed. How he still sucks his thumb and curls his hair when he's tired. How everything new is "lovely" and "beautiful" and "I lub it!" At night when I tuck him in he sits straight back up and tries to make me laugh. "Lie down Ralph," I say, hiding my smile behind my hand. But when I leave the room he calls out, repetitively until I respond. "I lub you Mummy! I lub you more! Lub you por eba!"

The wind rattled again and on the other side of the room, Scout opened her eyes and looked straight at me. I crooked my finger at her and she leaped out of bed and tip-toed as fast as she could over to ours. I lifted her into the lumpy bed, in between me and a still-sleeping Mr B, and she wrapped her arms around my neck and kissed my cheek.

Then I heard a thump. Ralph had climbed out of his own bed, and thudded over to ours, all puffy-eyed and wild-haired, and I helped him climb into bed, too.

"What doing Mummy?" he asked, voice croaky with sleep.

"Shh," I said, "lie down."

So he simply lay down, half on the bed and half snuggled on top of me, thumb back in mouth. Scout lay down next to him and reached her little hand out to his curls, softly stroking them.

"Is that lovely Ralph?" she asked softly.

He let his thumb out of his mouth for only a second. "Yes," he whispered. And then, "Do my ear?"

So Scout tickled his ear, then his back, and then his hair again.

"It lovely," he breathed.

Then Mr B woke up and rolled over. "Happy birthday Ralph!" he announced, and both children sat up.  Ralph pulled his thumb out of his mouth and said "Yeah!" and the birthday began.

Snail-mail + friends

Some experiences are just better shared. Take snail mail, for example, which is traditionally more of a solitary activity. Last night I hosted in my home the very first of what will hopefully be many meetings of the Snail Mail Social Club. We pooled our crafty, stationery-esque resources, and sat around the dining table and snacked and sipped wine and told stories and laughed and wrote letters and painted pictures and made envelopes and crafted.

Before we knew it the night had drawn out wayyy longer than we'd intended, and when I crawled into bed that night it was in the smug knowledge that a big stack of stamped Christmas cards* was sitting on the table waiting to go into the post the next morning, and with that warm, happy feeling that comes from having enjoyed uncomplicated friendship.

* OK maybe the stack of cards woulda-coulda been bigger, but it's a SOCIAL club as well as a snail-mail club...

For your reading pleasure

Oh hi! I'd love to stay and chat but I'm busy preparing for the inaugural meeting of the Melbourne Snail Mail Social Club. Ooh-wee! I cannot wait, and promise to tell you all about it soon.

In the meantime, here are some fabulous links for your reading pleasure:

* Watch out! If you post something racist online, you might see it immortalised on a billboard near your house! 

* Truly stunning illustrations

* Get your face on a biscuit (not biscuit on your face)

* Love the idea of a housewarming welcome kit 

* Amazing 3D story books. This one is Snow White (just flick through the pictures if you don't read Japanese)

* Four words: salted honey lavender pie!

* "I am an artist." Could you say it?

* The Arts Club in London (founded by Charles Dickens!) is now a hotel!

* Postable is kind of like Snail Mail My Email. (But it's available all year round. And you pick the card. And you have to pay.)

* Get pie mailed to your door

* Keep this out of your creative-time playlist

* How to stop time, travel in time, escape time, and more

Image credit: photograph is by Annie Spratt, licensed for unlimited use under Creative Commons

The wrong mail

Earlier this year, UK writer Ruth Tapp suffered from a collapsed lung, requiring major chest surgery. While she was recovering at home she began to receive mail for a mysterious stranger, Mr Eduardo Munez. During the weeks that followed, Ruth received letters addressed to Mr Eduardo Munez almost every day. The letters were all different shapes and sizes and did not seem to be coming from the same sender. This sparked Ruth’s imagination: who was Mr Eduardo Munez? Why did he get so much mail? She stopped feeling sorry for herself and got to work.

She put pen to paper and wrote "Eduardo Munez," a short film inspired by the wrong mail.

I really want to learn about Eduardo Munez and why he receives so much mail, and who is sending them, and why his mail suddenly started going to the wrong person. Do you, too? Ruth has put together a team of producers and directors, who are funding the film via Indiegogo, and there are six days to go on the campaign, if you're keen to make it happen. You can find out more here.

Thanks to the lovely Micu from Mail a Smile for letting me know about this project!

Image is of mail sent to me. Definitely NOT the wrong mail! 

Dance party

I downloaded this (free) Dance Break app on the weekend and I was the 299th person around the world to join the dance party. The idea is simple: once a day, at a random time, your phone will bleep to encourage you to dance. If you agree, it will play one great song to get you moving and you can stop what you are doing RIGHT THEN and get up and dance... along with everyone else who downloaded the app, wherever they are in the world. It's a global dance party. It's exercise. It's exuberance. It's silly. It's joy.

Will you dance with me?

Image credit: Bảo-Quân Nguyễn, licensed for unlimited use under Creative Commons

Creative project: Grandad stories

I have some exciting news to share. I have been invited to illustrate a children's book! I'm collaborating with the incredibly talented Wendy Milner, a professional writer who has just completed her first piece of children's fiction.

It is a beautiful (and true!) story called "Grandad and the Baby Dolphin." The Grandad of the story, Wendy's father, was a cray-fisherman off the Western Australian coast. While out at sea one day, he came across a baby dolphin in trouble. The dolphin was tangled in ropes and was slowly sinking beneath the salt waves. Grandad and his fellow fishermen were determined to rescue the baby dolphin, but what happened next amazed them all…

These are some sneak peeks and close-ups of my work-in-progress on the illustrations. If you'd like to know more about this lovely story (and others to come), Wendy has built a website for us, which you can find at Grandad Stories. You can also read her personal blog at Blink Blackburn.

Have you been working on anything new? I'd love to hear about it!

Home delivery coffee

Dear entrepreneurs and cafe-owners of Melbourne, here is a business idea. Consider it a gift from me to you.

Home delivery coffee.

Allow me to put my case.

Imagine, if you will, the thousands upon thousands of parents, grandparents, friends and nannies in Melbourne right now who have spent all day chasing after babies and toddlers. Anyone who has done this knows how BEHOND EXHAUSTING it is to do. And now imagine this occurring on the back of a night of little or at best broken sleep. Make that THREE AND A HALF YEARS of little or at best broken sleep, night after night.

And now imagine that at around two o’clock in the afternoon, by some happy confluence of hard work, planning, and sheer dumb luck, those babies and toddlers actually fall asleep for a nap. In their own beds. At the same time.

And so all those thousands upon thousands of parents, grandparents, friends and nannies who have spent all day chasing after all those babies and toddlers FINALLY get a chance to sit down. They know they should be cleaning, or working, or folding washing, or calling their mothers. But they are just so mind-numbingly exhausted that all they can do is sit and stare at that stain on the lounge-room rug left over from the Great Banana Mush Incident of ’13.

Do you know what they would love right now? Coffee. They would really, really love a nap-time coffee. Some might even kill for it, and most would probably pay through the nose for it.

But - and here’s the kicker - even if they had the energy to walk, they couldn't leave the house to buy it. The babies and toddlers are asleep, remember?

Now if someone was to develop an app via which all those people could ORDER a coffee, and have a barista with a coffee cart rock up at their home a few minutes later... Well, that person may well be in line to make their first million.

Just a suggestion.

Image credit: Lesly Juarez, licensed for unlimited use under Creative Commons