Snail Mail and All Its Wistful Prettiness

No, this isn't an entry about traveling yet. (Wait until the beginning of May, because by then I will already have gone somewhere this summer!)

It's about one of the best things you could do when you're traveling: sending snail mail. Postcards. Photographs. Handwritten notes about an interesting tidbit of information. To your family. To an old friend. To a bunch of friends whom you wish had gone with you to wherever you'd been.

This year I sent some friends who've graduated university (or are graduating in the next six months) funny photographs of themselves by traditional post mail, wrote a congratulatory note on the backs of these photos and packaged them in pretty air mail envelopes - the approximately 4" x 6 " envelopes, with stripes of blue and red - to send out. I sent one to a friend in Scotland, another who resided in the older parts of Manila, and two to two friends who live a few streets away from me. It was such a pleasant surprise when one of my friends, Carissa, sent me back a post card of thanks:

This was equally a lovely surprise, and I adore how colorful this postcard is! I love the drawings of the beach, and the stamps - oh, the stamps! - are just so pretty.

And speaking of stamps, when she pointed out the twenty-one year old stamp on this postcard, I remembered I kept in my bookshelf the stamp collection my aunt and dad had when they were children:

They're all yellowed out and fading, and the stamp book itself is falling apart, but it's all so wonderful and nostalgic.

You can't ever deny that there will always be an irreplaceable advantage of snail mail over e-mail and text messages; while the latter are quick, easy yet impersonal, snail mail will always, always be timeless, because of the hand that penned it, the stamps that give it means to travel all over the place, and the sincerity and love with which it was sent. :D