Returning home after an exhausting day, I open my letterbox to find a colourful creature on a thick white postcard. There is a short message with jumbled letters on barely erased pencilled lines: “Happy Birthday Minoli nenda”. (Nenda is aunt in Sinhala.) I put down my bags and breathe.
As I move around the world, postcards have become a way to tell people I love that I’m thinking of them. It’s not a picture that I post on Instagram Stories that disappears in 24 hours, or a WhatsApp message that gets lost among the many notifications. A postcard is tangible. It is real.
The sending of a postcard is a labour of love and picking the perfect one is an art. The image says something about the connection between me and my recipient; the common threads that join us. Deciding what to write and the process of putting pen to paper is therapeutic. It makes the recipient a part of my day, as I invite them to share a moment sitting on the grass in the sun or rattle along with me on a shaky train.
Then there’s the procurement of stamps, which involves figuring out when the post office is open and choosing ones that are fun or interesting. Finally I stop by a postbox and slide in the postcard hoping it gets delivered – I don’t get a notification indicating delivery. It is out there in the world, beyond my control.
Receiving a postcard is a process of love and community. I like to imagine a bored post office employee skimming through this message between two strangers as they stamp it. But I don’t have to imagine the possible conversations that could happen, as once my partner sent me a postcard to my parents’ house of “Bronzed Aussies”. This one sported a bunch of half-naked, ripped men on a beach. The postman found the image so hilarious that he told my surprised mother just how funny it was to see.
A postcard is intended to be a short communication between two people. But a whole community witnesses – and hopefully enjoys – facilitating this connection. In an age where meaningful dialogue seems to be something we have lost, postcards are a way to hold on to something that is beyond description.
Postcards have always been an object of fascination for me. I remember flipping through photo albums as a young girl and coming across those sent to my parents, from people I had never met. When I asked who these people were, I would hear wistful stories. Sometimes, I knew who the people were, and would then try to connect the aunt or uncle I know with the person who wrote it. It was a fascinating exercise.
As I grew older, I’d buy postcards for myself. Picking the perfect one was a learned skill. It had to capture the essence of the place and how I felt while there.
It wasn’t until Covid, when I was living on my own away from friends, family and the familiar, that I rediscovered connection through postcards. I would pick a card that was an illustration of my university and write to my partner about sitting in an alcove, eating a falafel wrap while the winter sun warmed my hands. Or I would pick one with a Highland cow and write to my friend about seeing one for the first time and how adorable they are. Each card was more than a piece of paper. It was love.
So when the child of one of my closest childhood friends turned three, I started sending him his own postcards. His mother would receive one but Chethi would receive one too. In Vietnam, I found a card of a little girl wearing a nón lá – a conical hat. At the back, I wrote about how they are made of palm leaves.
In Japan, I asked my partner – who had started drawing postcards – to draw origami paper cranes on it. At the back, I wrote about the tradition of a thousand origami cranes, and how it was everywhere in Hiroshima. I told him to ask his mother about the bombing of Japan (alongside a note to her with a heads-up).
Three years after I started writing to him, Chethi sent me his first postcard. He had drawn a monster and had written on it. My friend had sent me a note to say that she’s not sure what the monster is but, according to the artist, it’s “a good monster with powers and weapons” who will look over and bless me. It now hangs on my fridge. I see him every morning.
I think the blessing works, and seeing it every morning – among other postcards from friends from all over the world – makes me start the day with a smile.
• Minoli Wijetunga is a PhD candidate researching education and technology
