Letter Writing Club - Thursday, July 12

In the midst of all this summer heat, we're gearing up for our next Letter Writing Club this week, on Thursday, July 12th. It's in our new location in Little Italy, at 52 Clinton Street, but as always, it's from 7-9, free, and with supplies provided. One of the highlights of my month is delivering a full stack of mail to the post office. I had a little spurt of thank you note writing just before we left the old location, and I've been on a roll since then. I feel like I'm personally getting into a good groove, finding a comfortable medium with writing letters back and forth with a few good friends, or pen pals who are truly becoming like friends. While over the last few years I've occasionally let a few months (or more!) slip by between letters, over time, I've really come to treasure the building up and slow simmering of friendship and sharing that is sometimes only possible through a physical connection like paper through the post. It takes a while, really, to build up an intimacy with someone, especially through paper correspondence - although of course with some people it happens faster than others. It makes sense though, that you get what you put in: if you each take six months to respond, you'll each have written only one letter a year, and how much can you really share of yourself at that rate. That's certainly not to say that you should feel guilty or miserable about not finding time to squeeze in some letter writing - we've all got bills to pay and dishes to wash - but it is hopefully a bit of perspective that might help you find some motivation, that if you do pour into things, and people, that there can be a real blossoming of a friendship. And of course it takes a bit of luck as well, to find someone with whom you might naturally have a connection that will grow with time.* It's been a while since we did a pen pal match up, and so we're going to get ourselves ready to do it again. In case you missed all the fun the last two times, if you're interested in finding a few new people to write with, you can submit your info and answer a few questions through our google forms, and we match you up. You can see some behind the scenes from our first match up here.     *Over the years, I have had a few pen pals that have sort of fallen by the wayside, either through one or both of us missing the boat on getting letters into the mail. I do think though, that if there is a real connection, one or the both of us would pick up a pen and send a postcard or short note or letter and say miss you! and hope for the best at getting things going again. If neither of us are that interested in taking that sort of initiative, perhaps it wasn't really a correspondence that was going to pan out.