Originally posted 13 October 2017 via TinyLetter.

Hello! I’m playing around with a mini-project and want to try it as an unpredict. 

So! I’m in Spain and I love the idea of sending postcards when I travel, but I only succeed in sending them *maybe* 50% of the time. In fact, I have a box of blank postcards that were sent in an ideal alternate world of mine, but, in this current world, they rest there, scribbled with invisible names and imagined messages, unseen, unwritten and unsent. It’s time for me to unpredict this pattern!  

Essentially, a postcard is a bit of paper saying (in different words) “I’m thinking about you in a beautiful place and I want to say hi!” — but I would feel silly writing that on every postcard all the time, so I pressure myself to come up with something pithy, interesting and heartfelt. And this always results in buying 20 blank postcards, sitting in a cafe and staring at them for two hours over coffee, and then a pastry and then another coffee, before giving up and going on a bike ride.   

I’m feeling inspired by a thing that Rabbi Noa does at The Kitchen at Shabbos services (oh! and Shabbos is about celebration! and it’s Friday so Shabbat Shalom!). She asks people to share “an astounding fact about the wondrous universe”  — and people share facts such as ” We share 50% of our DNA with a banana!” — it’s this lovely mixture of awe and science.   

I likely won’t generate dozens and dozens of astounding facts, so if you share with a friend, you might have the same fact, but hopefully you can laugh and share the wonder together. Some of the postcards may just have a drawing of a leaf or flower that I see while wandering and maybe it’s scientific or cultural name.   

I’m playing around with this idea and it’ll evolve. If you would like to join me, there are a few ways: 1. Reply with an astounding fact and I’ll send it to someone.  2. Send me your address and you’ll get a postcard. 3. Whether you are traveling or not, send a postcard to a friend.      Let me know what you think!

xoMo

PS. If you have kiddos in your life who might enjoy a postcard, I can send science-words or drawings their way.