65.
One of my fans sent me some money and asked me to send him a postcard. That was a while ago now. I don’t know how much time has passed. I told myself I would wait until I saw the right postcard.
More and more time passed and I started feeling guilty. Should I tell him I haven’t sent it yet? Should I tell him about my process?
Last week Jonah and I went into an old bookstore in Sidney. He wanted to look for photography books. I was planning to look for a new memoir. The first thing I saw when I walked in the shop was a whole table of vintage postcards. Some of them were from the 1960s, some from the 1980s. I don’t know if those count as vintage, but I think they do.
I spent an hour combing through them all. Many of them were printed in Japan and Korea. Some were printed in France. Half the postcards were art prints. Monet. Chagall. The rest were scenes from big famous cities that don’t look the way they used to. Tokyo has changed so much over the past few decades. It’s hard to believe.
I loved touching the old cards. I loved being in the store with the freedom to look at and hold anything I wanted. I felt like a kid. Happy. Excited.
In the end I chose 15 postcards to take home. I’m thinking about advertising a postcard service. Maybe there is more than one person out there who would like to get a postcard from me. Especially a vintage postcard.
That night, I dreamt I ran into an old house to write on the postcard I’d picked out for my fan. I thought he’d like it that I chose a specific location to write to him from. I imagined he’d sense the energy of the old house when he read my words.
The house was dark and dusty and there were faded white lace curtains covering the kitchen window. Suddenly I had a sense that someone was behind me, and I realized I shouldn’t be in this house. I hadn’t even knocked, I’d just walked in off the street.
I crept down the stairs and entered a whole other world of connected houses, lace curtains, bazaars, and dead bodies. I don’t remember it too well anymore. I should have written it all down when I woke up, but it’s been years since I wrote down my dreams. When I was a teenager, I did it almost every morning.