Today, for many of us, this does not even occur to us – to write by hand and send New Year’s cards to loved ones. And yet, such a sign of attention can become a precious gift not only for our recipients … but also for ourselves.
The desire to sign a postcard and send it in the mail may seem like an oddity. We are accustomed to sending out congratulations in a “fan” – by e-mail or sms, and then, cleaning the mailbox, erase all the messages at once: as if there were none. I decided to return to the forgotten sensations and give my messages weight and individual style.
Recall. I’m looking at the purchased postcards. Next to them I lay out the old ones, my grandmother’s, with Kremlin stars and snow-covered Christmas trees, and I think about my family, about distant relatives with whom the once strong connection was broken … there were almost no friends,” comments Jungian analyst Anna Serkina. “These are warming memories, because they are associated with such natural pleasures – with the joy of giving and receiving confirmation that we are remembered and loved.”
Feel. Signing postcards was not easy: there are a lot of them, and the hand has lost the habit of the pen. And yet, after all, you need to find a notebook with addresses, go to the post office … But there is something important in these inconveniences – the time spent on postcards makes it possible to feel every second: not only now, but also in the future. I imagine how my messages will go to the addressees, how surprised they will be when they find them in the mailboxes – now, after all, no one sends letters to anyone by mail. “The occupation, to which we have made efforts, becomes more significant for us,” says Anna Serkina. “So we involuntarily slow down the run, get rid of the usual (formal) actions, are more attentive to what we do and how we live.”
touch. When writing congratulations, I remember those people to whom I am writing, I try to find special words for each. “By signing a postcard by hand, we give the message individuality, because the handwriting of each of us is unique,” says psychoanalyst Andrey Mozharov. “First, the one who writes holds the card, and then the one who receives it, and this contact is intimate, like a handshake or a hug,” adds Anna Serkina. Handwritten, a postcard can be an expensive gift, because it keeps a moment in time and experiences that will not be repeated, the warmth of our hands.