Bring A Card With You

I just got back from a trip a few hours from home, and before I left, I tossed a card in my bag. Nothing crazy fancy, just one card & no plan for who it was for.

By the end of the trip, I'd used it. A thank-you note, left behind for our Airbnb host and the cleaning crew who'd get the place ready for the next guest. ( know people a lot of people will message the host on the booking site, but I bet they rarely get a handwritten "thank-you")

Here's a kicker; when I packed that card, I had no idea who it was going to be for. I just knew I wanted to have one with me!

A few people on the trip noticed and asked about it. "Why'd you bring that? Who's it for?" And I didn't have an answer yet. I just said I'm not entirely sure..maybe the hosts, maybe I write it to the birthday girl, maybe I'm in love the girl next door (sadly, this didn't happen), or maybe it even ends up coming back home with me. I had nooo clue.

Just the fact of carrying purpose with you. ('Intention' is a great word, but I myself have even overused it & it's starting to lose its weight.) Purpose feels like a perfect alternative. It's not a vague feeling, it's something you're ready to act on the second the moment shows up!

And you don't have to travel three and a half hours to figure that out. Doesn't matter if you're flying to Florida or driving twenty minutes over, bring a card.

(I just leave a few in my car...) 😉

It can be a postcard, greeting card, old piece of paper even.

Now this is kind of a fun story! We stopped at an Italian place downtown, and when the bill came, it came with a postcard (the restaurant's name on the front, an old photo of the city behind it, and the back left totally blank). We didn't ask for it. They just gave it to us. My friend immediately handed it to me with a "this is perfect for you". They were right.

This restaurant understood something I already believed: that paper is one of the best souvenirs there is. (Magnets & shot glasses are cool too)

A blank card is an invitation nobody's forcing you to take, but it's there the moment you want it.

I also spotted a picture lying on the sidewalk. Went to pick it up, and it turned out to be a postcard. I have no idea how it ended up there. Maybe it slipped out of someone's bag, maybe it was headed for a mailbox and never made it. I don't know, and I'm not going to pretend I do. But it reminded me that paper is genuinely everywhere, if you're paying attention to it. You just have to be the kind of person who notices it in the first place.

Annnnd I get it, I know most people don't see it that way. Most people see a piece of paper on the ground and think trash, not treasure. I'm not naive to that. But I think that's actually part of the problem. We've become a generation that's numb to things like this. Disconnected. Starving for real connection but unwilling to put in the small, unglamorous work it takes to create it; writing something down, mailing it and then waiting on it.

Everybody wants to feel seen, known, &/or appreciated in society. I mean, you hear people complaining about the lack of it pretty often, but fewer people want to do the thing that makes someone else feel that way.

This comes down to that exactly. You don't need the perfect occasion to write something. You just need the paper on hand and the willingness to use it when the moment shows up. So next time you're packing for a trip, tuck a card in there. You might not know who it's for yet, and isn't that kind of awesome? 🤩