When I was 7, I met my first pen pal on a beach in Florida. Because I’ve been neurotic from a young age, I was spending the afternoon worrying that the little girl who wasn’t wearing a bikini top was going to get in trouble. My mom, sick of hearing me wonder aloud if maybe she’d just lost it somewhere, told me to cut it out already and just go see if she wanted to play. Since I’m also easily persuaded, I went over and said hi. She introduced herself as Francesca and told me she was staying in a hotel a little bit up the beach–the same hotel as mine! We built sandcastles together until the end of the week and then exchanged addresses so we could write when she went back to England and I went home to Ohio.
Over the next couple of years, we sent letters and pictures to each other and I learned all kinds of new things (lesson one, of course, being that Americans are unique in just how freaked out we get when it comes to topless little girls.) With the exception of Britishisms like “footie” and “mates,” most of the things I learned didn’t come directly from our letters, but because of them. Once in 5th grade, Francesca, now Frankie, sent me a picture of herself and her brother popping balloons at her birthday party. Wanting to show off my letter from my English friend, I brought the photo to school. When I went to pass it to my friend, the boy who sat next to me sneaked a peek and then leaned over and and whispered in my ear. “She looks like a slut.” It was the first time I’d ever heard anyone say “slut” out loud and so I took the opportunity to shed my inhibitions and chew him out for talking that way about a girl. To this day, I have no idea what exactly is slutty about balloon-popping, but I’m grateful to Frankie for being a friend who deserved to be stood up for.
In 7th grade, we were assigned pen pals so that we could practice Spanish. After a rocky start, my pen pal, Laura, and I wrote back and forth religiously. We’d send each other half-Spanish, half-English letters about ourselves and our cities. She sent me pictures of her basketball team and the Sagrada Familia and I mailed her friendship bracelets and menus from my favorite restaurants.
Ten years later, while I was studying abroad in Barcelona, Laura and I met up for lunch and chatted like long lost friends, not the strangers we really were. We discovered all kinds of things we had in common–first and foremost being an undying love for Harry Potter–that had seemed too mundane or too nerdy to mention in letters. When I asked her if she was going to see the new Harry Potter movie at midnight, she told me that Spaniards think Americans are out of our minds for going to see movies at midnight. If you ask me, that’s a bit rich coming from a people who think it’s normal to eat ham flavored potato chips and have their Christmas presents delivered by a pooing log, but that’s culture for you.
Today, I write emails more than letters because the Internet is where I spend a lot of time and because I can never find my stamps when I need them. I have friends who I email because it makes more sense to put my fingers on a keyboard and type out my unedited thoughts the way we would talk if our schedules ever managed to match up.
Sometimes, though, you need to send a letter. It doesn’t matter if it’s for your mom, your friend or a girl; when the situation demands paper and pen you should rise to the occasion. There’s something about a letter that keeps you company in a way that nothing else can, especially when you’re feeling lonely. When I was little, pen pals were about adventures and exotic semi-imaginary friends, but as a 23-year-old who’s started to suspect that the world is just too big to handle, letters have become more about comfort and sustaining good friendships than anything else.
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HOW TO MAKE A VERY SMALL SQUASHED BLOSSOM
In the interest of things that are tiny (#smallearth) and full of love, I’m going to show you how to make a squashed blossom letter. All your need is paper, a business card, a magazine, scissors, and glue. First, fold the business card in half and cut it so that each half is a perfect square. Then cut out squares of paper four times the size of half of your business card to makes the blossom. The easiest way to do this is to trace your business card two times right next to each other. Two or three squares is plenty.
Fold your first square in half diagonally and then turn it over and fold it in half lengthwise and widthwise. Give your paper a little push, and it should pop right into a blossom. Repeat this with all your other squares and then glue them together, flat quadrants against each other. Once the glue dries, it’s time to draw or write your message.
Get your business card back out and glue one of the sides to one of the flat quadrants of your blossom chain to make the cover. Glue a good page from a magazine onto the cover and use the rest of the page to make the envelope.
Envelopes are easy to make and don’t require any measuring if you do it right. Put your squashed blossom in the middle of a magazine page and fold and unfold each side so you have an idea of how big your envelope should be. Cut out the corners so that you have a cross shaped piece of paper and then fold the bottom and sides in and glue them. Put your squashed blossom in the envelope and glue or sticker it closed, and you’re ready to go.
Do you write letters? How do you feel about postcards? Tell us about your favorite letters and folding techniques in the comments! Did you know that the smallest letter that can be mailed using the US Postal Service is 3.5×5″? Now you do.
