“I’m thinking about you. What else can I say?": Why you should send your brother a postcard
BY GRACIE LARSEN-ANDERSON
It’s summertime in Berkeley, California, the sun is shining, there’s a cool breeze making wind chimes sing, I’ve managed to escape from the stifling heat of home for one day.
“25 cents each or 5 for 1 dollar”
I stop and so do my friends, but each of us for different reasons. The shop is a treasure trove of costume jewelery, old collectible trading cards, and small stone figurines. Every item is fighting for space and spilling over from the shelves into boxes. This is somewhere where what you’re looking for finds you. My friends vanish inside to find their prize, but I linger at that sign and the wooden crate it stands above. As my hands pass through paper memory, my eyes catch on fragments, piecing them together in a kind of poem: “wish you were here”, “Nancy picked this card” “speaks for itself” “the ocean misses you” “Love, Anne”. The messages aren’t meant for me, but they are so familiar and I find my heart twisting with each name signed in cursive or block print. My friends have finished their journeys now, but I’m not quite done. Four postcards in hand, but the fifth one, the perfect one, eludes me. I’m near the bottom of the crate now, when I see it, a stern face in black and white with eyes that remind me of the card’s intended recipient. 1 dollar poorer, but 5 postcards richer, we walk on to enjoy the rest of the day.
My older brother and I have been sending each other postcards for a long time. He used to send them to me when I was small from trips he took or just when he saw a card he thought I might like. When I lived in Costa Rica for three months four years ago, I started sending them back more regularly. Since I’ve been at St Andrews, I think we’ve sent each other at least 20 between the two of us. He’s not the only person I send these messages to, but he is why I started sending them at all. He’s the reason I’m always on the lookout for a good postcard, whenever I go anywhere. Something I’ve learned over the years is that no matter how small the town, no matter how boring the museum, you can always find a postcard.
From my brother, I’ve received a card with a huckleberry pancake recipe (Idaho), a vintage illustration of cars by the ocean (Santa Barbara, California), and a wooden, Van Gogh rendition of a Ponderosa Pine forest (Idaho). I’ve sent him cards with a photo of the botanics (St Andrews), a painting by Artemisia Gentileschi (Florence, Italy), and a cork postcard with Sardines on it (Porto, Portugal). The card is as much a part of the message as what you write on the card, sometimes more.
The limited space of a postcard means that you have to try and fit whatever updates you want to share from wherever you are or wherever the postcard is from in 3 sentences or less. It’s an exercise in brevity. For me and my brother it’s an Exercise in Brevity. The capitals are absolutely necessary. In person, we end up talking, sometimes shouting, for so long that sometimes we don’t have a conversation at all. Every postcard starts with the name and ends with I love you. How many conversations work like that? Three sentences of insight into the life of someone so far away attached to a photograph or a drawing that provides a paragraph of more information. I love the postcards because they’re something we share. We attach stickers and drawings to make them more personal for each other. I’ve started addressing mine to my brother and his dog (I have complete faith in her ability to read). A postcard isn’t a letter, but I like it that way. I still phone my brother, we still text, I don’t need to write him a letter. But, there’s something about the postcard, simultaneously bite-size and capturing a whole journey in a 4 by 6 inch piece of cardstock, that I can’t resist.
So, why should you write someone you love a postcard?
They’re everywhere, charity shops, gift shops, hotels, sometimes, randomly, restaurants. There’s nowhere you can go where a postcard will not be.
You say more with less. I’ve never felt like my brother and I understand each other more than when I’m reading a postcard he’s sent me or writing a postcard to send to him. The nature of the thing means you have to get to the point, so it becomes incredibly difficult to miss it.
They’re just cool. There are so many weird, awesome, quirky postcards out there. I hang up a lot of the ones my brother sends me. You can find one that makes you laugh, that represents the place you’re visiting, or one that reminds you of the person you’re sending it to. The opportunities are endless.
Next time you’re standing outside a treasure-chest shop in Berkeley, California, or St Andrews, Scotland or wherever you may be, dig around a bit in that box of paper memory. Maybe you’ll find the perfect card to start your postcard journey.
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