2. - 30/06/23

When was the last time you had a penpal?

I got myself a penpal late last year. A proper international penpal (I’ll talk more about him at some point soon). Prior to this penfriendship, I hadn’t had a penpal since I was little. I had a few through my childhood, but I’ve never been very good at keeping up that sort of commitment; same with the commitment in writing diaries, I’d try to start one with an entry, but then look back at it the next day, think ‘yuck’, and rip out the page. Getting over this notebook-perfectionist habit just so happened to align timewise with the beginnings of diagnosing and tackling my OCD… I used to think, ‘what if I die tomorrow and this embarrassing diary entry / poem / confession is all that’s left?’ Or, ‘what if someone finds out that this poem didn’t come out first time round as a perfect little emotion-poop?’ I don’t have these perfection worries with letters, but I often haven’t felt able to keep them going.

I’m famously bad at telephone conversations too - I just run out of things to say. There’s a bit of a family joke that I just do a little ‘yep’ in answer to absolutely everything. This isn’t because I’m not interested in the person giving me their time, not at all, but I don’t really know what it is because of either. I simply don’t have things to say a lot of the time. I’ve always got something to think hard about though, always have done, and I do struggle to verbalise my thoughts - this is obviously why I’ve been a natural writer since the age of 5, but why am I not very good at writing letters and diaries? Ah, I’ve just realised. If the letters and diaries were like this blog, or a prose poem, I’d be delighted to commit to them. Similarly, I’m really good at telephone conversations when it’s just me, with a recorder, talking creatively. I was always pretty good at playing a character onstage without any nerves too, but as soon as I started performing my own poems out loud, and trying to do the between-poem patter about myself, I would tremble. Anyway,

I come from a strong line of letter-writin’, diary-keepin’, phone-usin’ people, which isn’t something I’d realised in a conscious way until quite recently. My sister has kept a diary since before I can remember, and this never fails to impress me. We all buy blank diaries as a regular standard gift for her, and we will probably never know what is going into them - which is a beautiful thought to me. Our mum is a regular letter-writer, and she has held long-standing penfriendships with several friends through the years, even with some who she sees in person fairly often. In one of these friendships the two of them keep constant letters open, and don’t mind if they overlap with each other. I love that, but the thought of doing it myself makes my neurodivergent tendencies tweak. My mum also speaks with her three brothers on the phone all the time - they never run out of chat. I’m good at keeping people in my mind, but I sometimes forget that they don’t know this unless I let them know. Both my mum and sister are intimidatingly reliable at sending cards (mine are much more sporadic, though I’ve finally just put up a calendar on a kitchen cupboard). [The card-sending also ties in with my entire family’s love of miniature things. I adore my mum’s continued efforts to beat her own PB in the ‘smallest card ever to survive the UK postal system’ game.]

My mum’s mum was a letter writer too, and she had a beautiful phone voice. The most English-sounding and brightly-enunciated ‘hello’ you can imagine, which still rings in my memory. She’ll get a whole blog post of her own at some point, because she deserves one - she still occupies her very own special place in the universe of collective consciousness.

About a couple of months after we lost my mum’s dad to covid, I picked a book off the shelf at random. I flicked through it, and out dropped a little notecard. On one side was a cartoon by my grandad (of a pencil with a face, drawing a smile, and saying ‘keep smiling’), and on the reverse he’d written this: Liz - I’ll be there. Take care. Love D xxx’

So, I was talking about penpals. I had a couple of brief periods of doing some good letters, both when my dad moved abroad with work, and when my mum and I later joined him, and we all needed to write to our friends back home in order to keep them updated. My mum and I sent those fold-out airmail letters back and forth with my dad before we headed over to be with him, and one time, my teacher got our whole class to write letters and draw pictures to send to him - this is one of the best things I’ve ever heard of a teacher doing, and I think it might be one of the best manila envelopes my dad’s ever received in the post (he’s still got it somewhere, we might need to do a collaborative blog on it). When we were living in a new country, I obviously got hold of a bit more to say, but I also remember swapping cassette tapes with one friend - we’d record songs and then provide our own (likely hilarious and very mature) commentary in-between. More than almost anything, I loved recording my own tapes as a kid, so it’s no surprise that I’ve ended up making avant-garde podcast stories with my soul mate. That sort of creativity, with a partner, is all I ever wanted as a life goal. Actually, it is a surprise, because when I think about this, I find it very difficult not to start believing in destiny. Our address also contains more than one writer-appropriate reference, and I’d love to share it with you, but…

Anyway, penpals. I had another one for a short time, and I’m pretty sure our letters read like this:

Katy: Hi, how are you? I am fine. How is Spike? Squeak is fine.

Me: Hi, I am fine thank you. How are you? Spike is good. How is Squeak?

etc.

I’ve been thinking of how much I like the fact that things have come back around again to lots of people writing these newsletters, and making zines, and self-publishing loads of books. I was chatting to a friend last night about this too, and how I’ve also been thinking that it would be really nice to send these posts out as physical newsletters (and create a double-meaning of ‘post’) - although, would it become like the dreaded ‘round robin’ that my parents still receive from one of their oldest couple-friends, and which has reliably plopped onto their doormat for almost as long as I’ve been alive. I don’t think they’d mind the round robin at all, but with these people, who in person are actually lovely, the letter reads as a very long list of boasts. I don’t think that’s their intention, but it has become one of the most middle-class instances among our family jokes. Think, ‘No one:… / No one at all… / Couple: we’ve been to a lot of places, and done a whole lot of things!’

Oh, and actually my sister’s two little girls are also really into writing and receiving letters. I should have remembered this more quickly. Since they’ve come into existence it’s made me think a lot more about written correspondence again. We all make each other cards, and weird little notes, and generally try to involve the complete weight of our respective hefty stationery boxes every time we do so. I just want them to grow up with the excitement and surprise of physical post, handmade letters and books, and of learning to comprehend that they are always being thought of, somewhere else.

This has been a complete stream-of-consciousness post, and not what I expected to do when I sat down - I’m not sure I’m aiming for anything in particular either, but I’ll be happy if it’s provoked some thoughts for you. When did you last have a proper old-fashioned penpal? How are you? How is [insert pet’s name here]? I’m fine. What’s the best bit of post you’ve ever received? I hope you’re fine.

My next post will probably go back to something more fragmented and self-indulgent (yeah, more-so). If you didn’t receive the previous one, you can find it on my substack page. Oh yeah, by the way, I love hyphens and compound adjectives. x