When I was in high school* we never had a pen pal set up with people in other foreign-language countries. I thought those things only happened in books and American Pie (or what was that movie about the German exchange student?). What we did do, however, was write each other little notes. And thinking about it now, those little notes were the most amazing things.

Anytime there was some sort of holiday (Halloween, “Valentine’s Day,” school dance), there was a table set up in the main hallway where if you gave 50¢ or $1 to some sort of cause (I really can’t think of any), you would also get to write a note to somebody and then someone else would deliver it to them during class. Kind of like Mean Girls! Because I’ve kept every scrap of paper ever given to me in my entire life, I have an entire box full of these notes. None of them make any sense, really, one of them says “bobbing.” Also you guys I can’t believe I just opened this box.

But on ordinary days, we used to pass each other notes for free. These were sometimes folded in the most complex and (and creative, looking back) ways, which made it more fun to open. I remember the girl who helped me realize that I was bisexual and I used to pass each other secret notes in between classes, sticking them in each other’s lockers. They said pretty much anything; what had happened in first period, what we dreamt about last night, what we were doing that exact moment before writing. It didn’t really matter. What mattered was that we were thinking about each other when we weren’t together.

We did it with friends too. It’s just what we did when we were bored in class. We doodled, scribbled a note, folded it up and stuck it in somebody’s locker. Sometimes we wrote notes at night and delivered them in the morning. There were whole conversations happening on paper that weren’t even being spoken aloud.

As we grew older and got cell phones, the notes became less and less. It was all about texting during class, and, well, it was lame to buy Halloween-o-Grams. Our dollars were better spent on food instead of paper, unless it was rolling paper. This is kind of what our lives are now, aren’t they? I’m not saying it’s a bad thing, because I don’t think it is, I’m just saying that this is where we are. For long-distance friends and lovers, emailing is fast, free, and you can access it on your phone which makes it instant (I mean this in a different way than “fast”).

I was in a long-distance relationship once, and our primary contact was email. Both of us having intelligent phones, we could email each other as if it were text messaging. This is really special you guys! I don’t want you to think that because this is a post about writing on paper that email is like super non-personal and formal and without emotions. I think that you, Autostraddlers, know what email means more than a lot of people out there!

But some of the most special, exciting parts about being in a long-distance relationship, besides actually getting to be in the same city, is getting stuff in the mail. Thinking now, what I learned most from my high school pen pals and from being in a long-distance relationship, is that communication is special. Writing words on paper is a lot different from typing an email. Both are wonderful, but now, because of how fast emailing is, we understand what getting real letters in the mail means. A hand written letter means that someone took the time to sit down and find a pen, and write the words and then fold it into an envelope and go to the post office and buy a stamp and send it away, maybe never to see it again. It’s a labour of love. You can’t have 15 tabs open at the same time. And it’s like you put a little bit of your heart into it too, you know? Instead of just the same font and the automatic signature at the bottom. It’s scary because there’s only one copy and you can’t ever have the exact same copy. And you send it away, you just give it away, and hope that someone else delivers.

*In Quebec, Canada, high school includes middle school, ie, ages 13-17.

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HOW TO DO A REALLY COOL PAPER FOLD

Now I’m going to show you how to fold a note like I used to in high school (“middle school”) which I think will be really really special for putting notes in pigeonholes at the next A-Camp.

Just remember that it’s symmetrical, so when I said “fold X”, I also mean fold the other side as well.

1. Fold paper in half vertically.

2. Do it again.

3. Imagine that there is a square at the end of your paper. Fold the square diagonally.

4. Okay, now it’s starting to get a bit tricky…to describe. Imagine again that there is a square after the square you just made. that’s a terrible description, so I made you a diagram so you can see inside my brain.

Fold along the imaginary diagonal line.

5.  Fold directly upwards along the horizontal “center” line. I only folded one side here.

6. Now I’m sure you can start to see where to this fold is going… Take the end that is sticking out and fold it over onto the center. Fold the other half of the paper over so it covers the part you just put in the center (following?). You should then be able to stick the last end inside and everything should stay in place.

I found this a bit hard to describe so I’m really sorry if these are the worst descriptions/pictures ever. But I’m not sorry about the product placement.

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Next: Tales of a serial pen pal and instructions for a tiny letter

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.

This is the kind of very important stuff we talked about

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.

I told you it was a rough start

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.

We are all a little weird and life’s a little weird, and when we find someone whose weirdness is compatible with ours, we join up with them and fall in mutual weirdness and call it love.

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.

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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.