Postcrossing

I joined Postcrossing in July 2021. This is a website where you set up a profile and then send, and receive, postcards from all over the world. It’s not direct correspondence, nor the dreaded chain mail — it’s literally getting sent a postcard from a randomly selected sender, and being assigned a random addressee of your own.

It’s not really random, of course, because what you put on your profile does affect who you’ll send cards to. Since I have listed a number of foreign languages spoken or understood, I am assigned more destinations than pure randomness might dictate. Also, Germans are ferocious postcard senders, and an astonishing 624 of the 830 postcards I’ve sent to date have been to Germany. (I am thrilled by this because I always write the card in German for practice. Though the text is somewhat repetitive, I always try to match what I write to the recipient’s interests.)

On my profile I say I’m a birder, and that I’d love to receive postcards of birds from the sender’s country. An amazing thing is that over half of the 828 postcards I’ve received to date have been of birds. I get so many I frequently have to change the wall of them on the fridge, pictured at right with bonus cat. Not all the cards are Eurasian robins or blue tits, as you can see.

Sending postcards through the mail is a) delightfully analog, b) allows me to make connections with people all over the world, c) scratches a bit of a travel itch, d) makes my own mailbox happy almost every day. (I just wish there were more postcards of Davis available to buy; not everyone likes a handmade card.)