I used to write a lot of letters when I was younger. Like a lot. Every three to four years we would move to another country and the only way to keep in touch with my friends was through letters. Every three weeks I could expect letters from some of my friends because we were getting good at replying almost straight away to one another which kept the flow going. That was awesome. At that time, there was no internet yet. ( Like Whaaaaaat??! Almost unbelievable when you think of it!) We didn’t have cell phones and an international call was still pretty expensive so you would only do it once in a while to organize a week on holiday back at their place or something. Yes a phone call to organize something « big ».
Nowadays. No ways. smartphones, messages, social media. It’s all over the place. Where has gone the piece of paper you will keep your whole life in a box that your grandchildren will find one day in the attic?
Indeed, the digital and paperless generation is here. Why send a letter if you can call over roaming? (lets be honest, wifi is now sooo has been ….). Why send a postcard of where you are when you can post a picture of you anywhere in the world to anyone and everyone all over the world?
I must be old fashioned in a way… or simply old (not!) ( by the way, for those who do not know yet… my age is stuck at 27).
In my early twenties, I went backpacking in Italy with four other of my girlfriends. At that time, some of our parents wanted to know every move we were taking so I « prebooked » hostels (booooring -we thought- where has the adventure gone?) and trains on my bank account until the girls would pay me back. My parents were not pleased at all with the idea and to get them to forgive me a bit faster ( you can imagine… ) I started sending a post card from every city we visited within those three weeks to say sorry and to thank them because without the advance of cash I wouldn’t have been able to travel. (longer story short). In three weeks I ended up sending 16 postcards. They were very happy of it of course and I was also so happy to send them because I was honestly thinking of them everyday and so grateful I was being able to travel and visit the world.
This is how my « postcard adventure » started…
Since then every time I can and that I find good enough postcards I send one home. For my parents. I miss them so much. Every day. They are the best parents I would have ever imagined having. With smartphones and internet all over the place, you can be so close and yet so far. With a card, I take time to write something down and send it. It takes one or two days to arrive home and I know they will appreciate what I have written (something I have nothing to say , it happens too!) but the thought is there. I took time for them.
Sometimes the postcard also comes a few month later… 2-to 4 month depending on how remote the place you have been visiting was…
Since I am sailing I have extended this habit to my whole family, and then to some of my best friends, that I now consider family and a few of my very good friends too. That makes quite a few postcards! It used to always minimum of 5, and then if they are cool a few extra and I rotate within my friends; it is now a minimum of 10 I send in every harbour now. Wow I just realized its like 30 harbours a year so maybe 250-300 cards that I send out!!! impressive… 🙂
Another cool fact about my post card challenge is that by doing this I am also continuing a seafarers tradition: « posted at sea »… How many persons could say that they have received a letter or a card with funky coordinates and a huge ship stamp on it?
In the old days, the only opportunity to get some news was to get closer to other vessels at sea, and give them the mail we had if they were returning to land.…
If the ships had the same home port, it was definitively no problem to deliver the mail. News about an arriving ship spread quickly and everyone came to check for news. But what about the ship returning to a different port, or even a different country? How was the mail delivered then? Who paid the postage and in what currency……?
Well, all of that led to an international agreement about Ship Mail known as Paquebot, French being the world’s official postal language. Simply put, if you are on the open sea, which belongs to nobody, the deck you are standing on is the territory of the country under which flag the ship sails. That means, that if you write a letter on the ship’s deck and on the high sea, you should be able to use the stamp of the country under which the ship sails. That also means, that if a ship enters a harbor, the officer should be able to hand over the mail to the local post office at that harbor in whatever country, and the mail should be delivered without any additional charge…
In the top right corner I stamp my envelopes with a ships stamp, and the dutch « post NL» stamp and write down my coordinates and « posted at sea ». I think 95% of my cards have arrived. Ar at least 100% have arrived home, that is for sure! 🙂
I love traditions.
There are quite some funny facts. When Granny receives them, she still thinks I am at the place when she receives the card. So when I come home and visit her and that she has just received that remote card, she thinks I I just arriving from some kind of banana republic in the Caribbean again.. It is sweet..
Or what I really find cool as well is when after a whole summer people send me a picture of all the cards they received with a huge thank you note. I really find it cool that it makes people happy.
I also have that special friend who has been telling me for months now that I had to check my mail box but I have never received anything yet… all summer I was told he wanted to write me but he never did. So I have send him – hoping it would help- a few envelopes pre stamped and with paper and my address already written on them but…. It seems that that even didn’t help.
It started when he left in Barbados on semester break: « check your mail box Sophs! », « well you don’t even have my address kiddo! » I answered. « life is full of surprises » he said back.
Later in the summer it was a lot of « I really want to write you a letter » « I am going to write you a letter » « I want to , I will I promise »… haha well I still haven’t received anything
I guess some people write and others don’t. I do not know.
In the end the small/ big question is : do I do this to get letters and cards back? What is more important, getting letters or once in a while a text message? Do we write to satisfy ourselves? Or the others? mhmh
Anyways, I do believe that if you promise you will write, sometimes it is not really about the letter and its content but more about the word and the promise that define you as a person.
I love staying in touch with people and I find it pretty difficult when at sea. I am extremely lucky to be able to use whatsapp in the middle of the ocean… it has been a huge improvement since I started sailing. I do not need much more. Just the people I love close by. I do thinking it is a nice experience to not have phones and internet, to be disconnected for a few days when sailing; but to be honest, I have done that experiment long enough in the pas, and I have nothing to prove. Now I want my friends and family close. And I wouldn’t trade that for anything else.
Ok Ok to be fair, even at sea, you would be surprised, but we also have some rules: no emails and phones ( mhmh sneaky sneaky sometimes! I admit!) during weekends and past certain hours: indeed our offices are in two very different time zones, we constantly change country with different agents, and none of them answer in the middle of the night or during weekends. So we do the same now; and we feel way better 🙂
Yes staying in touch with my friends. One of the most important things for my. Being in touch in contact, sending messages. – yes. I am addicted to text messages-. But why and how? Why on earth do I have such a job and am never close to any body of my family and friends?
When I was student I really was a party girl, going out every weekends till 5 am with my friends, having a lot of social activities, meeting up with a lot of friends always. Never alone and never stopping one second: studying, rowing, chief scout, the navy, working, going home. It never stopped. I like to be challenged like that but it is also very stressful.
Living in a big city such as Paris is great. I LOVE it! But you also get those friends – friends of friends, friends of friends of friends that show up all the time because they are in the « same group » but you don’t really want to see them, and you kind of also want to be alone when its too crowded and even though you have a lot of people around you, you can also feel extremely alone sometimes…
so? Whats the link Sophs??!
“All that is not eternal is eternally useless.”
Well when I went at sea I first found the same feeling as when we were moving younger: time would just automatically « get rid » (ok sounds a bit harsh I know..) of those people you didn’t really want to stay friends with. And only the best ones would stay in touch. And that is what happened! I never changed my number so that I was always available. And people who actually wanted to stay in touch with me did. When I think of it we are often close to shore and I can very often check my phone and emails. Just not social media – at that time-.
So i could totally stay in touch with my besties and family.
I just found a lot of « air » around me and freedom of doing what I wanted.
Well, now. Sometimes I truly miss people and wish I were very close to them. But therefore I can WhatsApp and send cards! 🙂 and we do stay in touch.
I mean it . I make a point of honor to stay in touch with those I love.
I have made a commitment to myself. (upon quite a few, this is one of them).
Your commitments shape your life more than anything else. Your commitments can develop you or they can destroy you, but either way, they will define you. Tell me what you’re committed to, and I’ll tell you what you’ll be in 20 years, because we become whatever we’re committed to.
– what wait? Will I become a postcard??!! Haha
– no a link, a faithful and trustworthy friend; hopefully someone who values some friends more than anything and that even without post cards or letters back, even if I never reach out enough. Someone who may be independent but nothing without the people she loves.
I say that. But keeping commitments can be quite hard. But without you will only be drifting through life, and while everything will melt around us, what lives we should be living! (2 Peter 3:11).
The same for half commitments and temporary ones. Or even those where the values might not be the best hearted: competition, wealth, fame. There is none of that at sea. And if there were, these wouldn’t end up very far trust me! No disappointment or bitterness. I am trying to ban these. And it would be a huge mistake to think that God’s goal for your life would be material prosperity or to be popular with a lot of success.
Staying in touch with people by letters and cards, messages, calls is a way to value the person we want to stay in touch with. It is pointing out the value these other persons have for us. And fixing the attention on the things that are eternally important: friendship, family, love. A way to keep them close to my heart and hopefully, me close to their heart while I am far away. Mixing up the sayings: so far but yet so close. 🙂 <3. Ok ok… a little quote from the Bible…. in 2 Corinthians 4:18, “For we fix our attention, not on things that are seen, but on things that are unseen. What can be seen lasts only for a time, but what cannot be seen lasts forever” . He really got it right didn’t he? 😉
Gotta go post my letters!
I ❤ you!
Sophs ❤ ⚓
S O P H I E. T H E. S A I L O R. 