twenty-eight cents
Every now and again, Tess and I will either make or buy postcards. We then bust out the Sharpies and get to writing. One card might bear a knock-knock joke, one might have a quote that inspires one of us, but most of those postcards are simply free-form good wishes and encouragement.
The addressees? Random people from the phone book. We just pick names and get to scribblin’. It sounds dorky –and it really is– but it’s a great deal of inexpensive fun, because Tessa and I both get verra, verra excited at the notion of this little surprise maybe making the day of a person we don’t know. At the very least, it’s a puzzle to the recipient, and mystery is sexy, yeah?
Now then: I want you to participate in this endeavor with me, and you don’t really have to do much at all in the way of work. Just drop the name and address of someone you want to bless with a surprise bit of postal encouragement into my comments or e-mail (which is linked to my name at the end of this post). Hell, it doesn’t even have to be the name and address of someone you personally know….you can just pick a person or two from the phone book in your area. I don’t care overmuch who we try and reach so much as I care about just putting some good vibes out there into the world.
In concert with this I asked Tess to pick an arbitrary number: “Seven-hundred and fifteen!” Well then.
The number I had her pick, before I told her about this project, was to be the amount of people I wanted us to reach….so now we have a goal of seven-hundred and fifteen people that we want to drop some postal lovin’ on. Um, guys? That means I also need help with getting the word out, because the more people that know, the more addresses I collect.
Look, just so you’re aware: I don’t run advertising on this site. I don’t give a shit about numbers or page impressions or whatever it is we as voyeurnallers are supposed to be preoccupied with these days. I just think it’s important to bless people, and I think that small blessings are imperative in part because they are like little stepping stones between the bigger blessings that many of us long to encounter. Other things I think are important are purposefully doing good and having fun.
It may not sound like much to most of the populace, but to some people, getting a piece of mail saying, “Hi. You matter, chief.” might make all the difference in the world. Tess and I are committed to doing a minimum of twenty postcards apiece per week. At that rate, given we meet our goal address-wise, it will take us roughly five months to complete this project. It will take around two-hundred dollars in postage (assuming that the bulk of addresses are in the U.S; this is not a requirement, however), a minimum of seventeen trips to the post office, and whatever coin the actual postcards we scout up or make end up costing.
All we need is a little help rounding up folk. Will you throw in a name and address and then pass the word?
13 worked it out »