POSTCARD N.13 - Austria
Postcrossing postcard posted on the 14th July; received on the 20th July
Potscard image: Celebrating Postcrossing
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I only came across Postcrossing after I started this humble blog of mine, about three months ago. But as many a believer in the power simple things have to make a better world and to bridge differences and create common grounds, I joined the moment I took notice of it.
In fact, writing someone you don't know a simple postcard is much more than a hobby or a way to fill in some free time. It is an act of citizenship, of welcoming, of culture, much the same as reaching out or lending a hand.
When I started this blog I wrote that I was doing it because I missed finding correspondence in my mailbox; i missed the pleasure of seeing an envelope with an handwritten address, my address, on it, with the promise of news from someone I knew or knew not, mundane as they might be, therein inscribed, in a sheet of handwritten paper.
I knew at heart that there had to be a great many people who felt much the same way I did, but where were they?
I wasn't looking for friends. I know how elusive the notion of "friend" can be when perceived against the backdrop of an electronic application or the vast wasteland of social media. I guess I was looking for humanity nodes; synaptic points of interconnection with my own species.
And Postcrossing proved to be just the right tool to achieve this goal, making it possible to turn my mailbox into a library of Man. With each postcard I receive, my world simply grows bigger, wider, more knowledgeable.
To learn that such a brilliant idea originated in the mind of a fellow countryman, and that it grew up to be the amazing platform we now profit from, is inspirational and a mailbox opened into the future...
Anita, whom I thank, sent me this terrific card, issued, just as it reads, to celebrate the issuing of a second postcrossing themed stamp by the Austrian Post (the first one having been issued in 2016)
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