Susanna’s Suitors

Fröken Susanna Pettersson of Sunnansjö, Sweden couldn’t vote, couldn’t earn, and couldn’t easily leave her small village. But in 1903, she could receive romantic postcards. She kept them. But, did she reply?

Rare Cards ~
Four Antique Swedish Postcards Sent to the Same Young Woman

In rural Dalarna, Sweden around 1903, a young woman named Susanna Pettersson receive four romantic postcards from three suitors in nearby towns. All the postcards arrived through the local mail to an address at Tjärnsvedens, Sunnansjö, in the wooded heart of Swedish folk country.

The honorific Fröken printed before her name on every card tells us she was unmarried. In early twentieth century Sweden, it was a title with genuine social weight that was relinquished upon marriage. For Susanna, the boundaries of daily life were drawn by family, church, and society. The careful correspondence of courtship may have provided a sense of choice.

In these years, postcards were at the absolute peak of a golden age. Dominated by the German printing industry and distributed across Europe and abroad, romance cards were a technically sophisticated and lucrative niche in a rapidly growing economy.

These exquisite cards were chosen deliberately by suitors to convey a range of emotion, laden with symbolic images and verses of serious sentiment. In our case, the hand-scripted messages are overt. To send such a postcard was a cautious and considered act, even a declaration. To receive four such cards suggests a woman who inspired intention.

In the early 1900s, Scandinavia was reckoning with questions of identity and sovereignty that touched daily life and daily culture, woven in with the cultural flowering of Larsson, Lagerlöf, Ibsen, Grieg, and Munch. Sweden itself was unsettled. The union with Norway, in place since 1814, was fracturing toward its peaceful but charged dissolution in 1905.

Borlänge, just down the road from Sunnansjö, was growing fast around iron and steel, drawing young men out of villages like Susanna’s into an industrializing economy. The authors of these cards may themselves have been young men who moved away to seek their futures, writing back to Susanna across a widening distance of place and era.

Card 1 ~ Suitor 1 from Norhyttan

Front: An elegantly dressed couple in a richly appointed interior — man in blue-grey jacket, woman in red and gold dress — seated before an ornate folding screen painted with roses. Tropical palm in background.

Många Hjärtliga helsning av han ere…

Many heartfelt greetings from him who is [yours]…

Back: Addressed to Fröken Sanna Persson, Tjärnsvedens, Sunnansjö. Note the affectionate diminutive Sanna rather than the formal Susanna used on other cards. Swedish 5 öre green stamp, Norhyttan postmark, circa 1902.

Correspondence: Lower right, heavily scripted in a practiced pen-and-ink hand. Left margin written vertically. Lower left coded notation: 1. = 1.9. = 1.19. =

Nog vet du att jag älskar dig, fast du det aldrig hört af mig, min och din blick föråda val den tysta lågan i min själ.

You surely know that I love you, even though you have never heard it from me. Mine and your glance betray the silent flame in my soul.

Production and Collector Notes: Premium chromolithograph with gold embossing, likely printed in Germany or Austria. Numbered series notation, Serie 193. Embossed romance cards of this quality with intact original Swedish correspondence are increasingly scarce. Of interest to collectors of Scandinavian ephemera, Edwardian romance, and social history researchers.

Card 2 ~ Suitor 1 from Norhyttan

Front: An archetypal couple stands on a rocky highland landscape with a misty and dramatic backdrop. A man in rough tunic carries a tall staff next to a woman in flowing white dress with loose hair.

Back: Addressed to Fröken Susanna Pettersson, Tjärnsvedens, Sunnansjö. Swedish 5 öre stamp, Norhyttan postmark.

Correspondence: Densely written in heavy hand-scripted text running in multiple directions across the image.

Elfligt lyckligt är att änga — då ned har bäksfloden bringar men nu skralla den nu torka in text hur dyster då det blefo…

Blissfully happy it is to linger — when down the brook brings / but now how gloomy / when it became…

Production and collector notes: Sepia-toned romantic lithograph published in Stockholm by C. Ns Lj., Sthlm. Series 1339. Domestic Swedish production rather than imported German print, comparatively less common for this period and market. The heroic Nordic couple reflects romantic aesthetic prominent in Scandinavian visual culture of the early 1900s. Dense multi-directional handwriting across the image face is biographically significant. Of interest to collectors of Swedish ephemera, Scandinavian social history, and scholars of private correspondence.

Card 3 ~ Suitor 2 from Borlänge

Front: A young woman in a golden-yellow gown reclines on a chaise surrounded by red azaleas and roses, holding a small red book or letter, gazing pensively to one side. Circular vignette set against a rich gold ground with pink Art Deco lattice decoration and heart motifs in each corner.

Back: Addressed to Fröken Susanna Pettersson, Sunnansjö, Gryftångbodarma. The address variation roughly translates to ‘summer farm buildings’ suggesting that Susanna was not at her main home but was staying at a seasonal outpost. Postmark, Borlänge, 1903. Small printer’s horse mark, bottom left.

Correspondence: Rounder and more casual hand-script. Left margin may be a name or family reference.

Så härligt är ej källans öras invid en blomstertal så härlig är ej dagens ljus son tryckt få din hand.

Not so lovely is the murmur of the spring, beside a flower-tale so lovely — not so bright is the light of day, as when pressed upon your hand.

Production and collector notes: Art Nouveau chromolithograph, Serie “Liebesträume” (Dreams of Love), produced by a quality German publisher and distributed internationally, reflecting Germany’s dominant role in the European postcard market of this era. Art Nouveau romance cards with intact Swedish correspondence and Borlänge postmark are notably scarce. Of interest to collectors of Art Nouveau ephemera, Scandinavian material culture, and historians of industrializing Sweden.

Card 4 ~ Suitor 3 from Stockholm

Front: A couple in a garden setting — woman in white and gold embroidered dress seated on a bench with flowers and parasol. Man in dark suit and straw boater hat leaning toward her attentively. Flowering trees surround them.

Back: Addressed to Fröken Susanna Petterson, Tjärnsvedens, Sunnansjö. Postmark origin reads Sto-, stamp damaged, full date not legible. Almost certainly Stockholm, circa 1903.

Correspondence: Written across the upper image in a compressed angular hand, distinct from both previous writers. Faded pen and ink, with partially legible fragments.

Bätt… polset… och mer… bättre…

Better… better… and more… better…

Production and collector notes: Sepia lithograph with gold highlights published by G. L. Hamburg. Serie 1896, a respected German publisher. Hamburg-published cards with intact Swedish correspondence and Stockholm postmarks from this period are collectible. Of interest to collectors of German-published romance cards and Edwardian Scandinavian ephemera.

Susanna Pettersson lived in a world that offered her limited formal choices. But in a small wooden house in Dalarna at the beginning of the last century, she could make her own quiet judgments. She could choose carefully.

Three suitors, three futures. Did she answer any of them? Whether she eventually became Fru or remained Fröken, we can’t discern from the evidence here. All we know is that she kept those four cards all those years.

The postcards in this rare set were sent from the heart of Dalarna, Sweden — the same province that gave the world the iconic Dala horse, a brightly painted wooden folk toy whittled by loggers and miners during long Scandinavian winters. In 1869, Swedish immigrants from Dalarna carried that tradition across an ocean to the Kansas prairie, founding the town of Lindsborg — known today as Little Sweden USA, where you can Hunt for Wild Dalas!

Moments We Miss

Valentine’s Day is over. The chocolates parceled out, consumed in a binge, or sweetly regifted. The cards are in a stack. Love trudges on.

Before we go, there is a word worth saying about silences and the quiet costs of delayed connections, and those missed entirely.

In May 2023, the Surgeon General issued an advisory that stopped me mid-scroll. Loneliness had reached epidemic levels in the United States. He was not describing the usual suspects—a widower, a loner, someone at the edge of class or condition. I had to admit, his warning rang a bell in my own heart. I was among a growing contingent of the ordinary, ambient, alarmingly average lonely. As a caregiver, days passed without anyone really seeing me, or me really wanting to be noticed.

The Surgeon General called it a public health crisis. He compared its effects on mortality to smoking fifteen cigarettes a day. Actual harm done.

Indeed, social isolation raises the risk of heart disease, stroke, dementia, and early death. The health research is not soft or sentimental. The body registers being unseen the same way it registers physical pain — same neural pathways, same hormonal alarm signals, same disrupted sleep, same compounding risks. We are living inside a paradox: more connected by technology than any humans in history, and perhaps lonelier than our ancestors.

In the golden age of the postcard — roughly 1900 to 1920 — Americans sent billions of them. A trip to the lake. A hello from the city. A heart, a name, a single line of longing, on full view to the mail carrier and anyone else who handled it along the way. The medium demanded brevity, levity, and a light touch.

That simple approach is worth noticing, because we tend to use the absence of time as our primary excuse for not reaching out. We sense there isn’t room in the average difficult day for a real conversation. So we wait. And the time doesn’t come. And the silence grows.

A postcard is a signal, not a report. It says: I haven’t forgotten. A brief message can make a big point. At times, the whispered delivery bears the full meaning.

The research on what makes people feel less alone points not to the depth of connection in any given moment, but to its consistency. There is comfort in the reliable sense that someone, somewhere, is holding you in mind. A brief, warm gesture, repeated, does more for that feeling than an overwrought or inconsistent one.

Simple gestures are not consolation prizes. They are the architecture of belonging.

Sadly true, is often easier to extend kindness to a stranger than to sustain the loving glow among the people you know best. A stranger on a difficult day can receive warmth without a complicated history. They don’t owe you a response and you likely won’t know how the gift was felt. You haven’t let them down in the small accumulated ways that life’s closeness allows.

The people we love most are the ones we are most likely to let drift or actively ignore. A peculiar paralysis comes with the familiar foibles, caring deeply, and feeling the gap widen.

So here is a gentle nudge, the week after the holiday, when the pressure is off and the expectations are low. Not because it’s February. Because it’s Wednesday, and someone who loves you needs to know. A postcard or a hug, a humble tug on the sleeve or a quiet walk. None of it asks or offers too much. A simple, “We are ok,” can be enough.

LOVE IS CRINGE

The seasonal gallery is creepy, cringey, lacking humor, and awfully lowbrow. If love has struck you awkward or dumb, we know how.

Long Distance Love Languages

I don’t dare reveal the flipsides of the love-laced cards you’re about to see. What Ida, Minnie, or Gertrude sent or received isn’t for you or me.

Hand-delivered to Arthur from Jack, this first example is our single exception. With a humble request and an elegant script, we can only hope the romance of a lifetime began, heated up, or settled in. Maybe it was placed on the pillow that morning, sometime before 1907 when postcards still featured undivided backs.

My own love is famously far afield. In the early days, our photograph appeared in a magazine alongside a short interview on the workings of our long-distance affair. We were an ocean away in those days, and on the adventure of a lifetime together. It could be a car drive now, albeit a very long one. Always tempting!

  • Obviously.
  • Yes, let’s do!
  • Finding here anywhere we meet.
  • Snowcrete!
  • Little Blue Carriage for Two
  • Future Flights
  • Love, Your Guardi-Anne.

Languages are a passion and a profession for my lady linguist. So a few more out of pure fun and fascination. Luf yah!

Dear readers, I promised you hearts and flowers after that awkward spell last week. First, a gallery carefully curated on the theme. Then, elucidations and another peek.

Made-for-you messages with showy sentiments on full view to your pa, your ma, and the mail carrier, too.

Some parts are still snowy, as love lamps flicker on in February. Hearts, words, and birds arrive in the quiet winter glow. Rest inside a circle of love. When you know, you know.

Enjoy the holiday and see you next week!

Leery of Love

We’ll get to the hearts and flowers. But first, this is awkward.

It’s February. Congratulations if you have accomplished anything this year.

I spent the morning sorting through Valentine’s greetings. Love is in the air, and rest assured there are albums full of gorgeous arrangements and heartfelt sentiments in the weeks ahead.

But first, I need to bring up something awkward. Not everyone loves this sweetheart’s holiday. For the lovelorn, it’s excruciating. For the grieving, a sad set of reminders. For the wicked, a chance to lance the joy bubbles in the air.

In postcards, we have to acknowledge the neck strain.

Also, captions that might have meant exactly what they suggest.

Lastly, those with an anti-Valentine vibe, a bad bargain, or even a threat!

We will return next week to the regular schedule of sweetness and light, heart and flowers, charm and chocolate, passion and promises. How… delightful!

Reminder, recent story series are at the Wednesday Weekly Reader. This month, you might also enjoy an old yarn about embroidered postcards.

Postcards, Plus

A picture is worth a thousand words, which can be tough news for a writer. I like words and images together, and art cards are a peaceful place to be while sorting through the longer storylines happening around here.

To start an art card, I pull together a collection of cards and ephemera related to a theme or style I want to explore. Gather tools, supplies, and a drink at my art board. Set my phone aside, and pick up an exacto knife. Then, I sit down, quiet down, and begin to make meaning out of the materials in front of me. I’m nowhere near my computer or journal, but making an art card now and then is part and parcel with my writing process.

The Posted Past Art Card Gallery is inspired by so many wonderful postcard projects over the years. Worth mentioning are PostSecret, which invites anyone to share an anonymous secret on a postcard, and PostCrossing, which makes it easy to send and receive postcards around the world.

For our part, we collaborate with collage artists to make something small and special for everyone to enjoy. The artist requests a theme or two based on interests like, trees, farms, or portraits. We send an art card bundle and they create collage postcards with these materials. The postcard collages come back through the mail, celebrating the wear and tear of the postal service journey.

The Art Card Gallery is a place to see art card collages created by artists around the world.

This month, meet Fiber Artist Reed Fowler! 

WEDNESDAY WEEKLY READER

If you’re already a subscriber, bless you for hanging on as you do. You get a little note in your inbox each Wednesday. Most times it flits away like a red cardinal, down into the cold, thatched hinterland of your inbox scroll. I know.

Introducing the Wednesday Weekly Reader, a new place to catch up with a previous story series bundled in a way that is easier to read. If you love our national parks, wonder about where the past gets lost, or know a few lonely snowbirds, a story series may meet your fancy.

Mycelium Moments

Reed Fowler is a textile artist, pastor, and writer. Originally from Vermont, he now calls Minnesota home. Reed taught themselves to sew at a young age, following in the path of their grandma and aunt, and fell in love with weaving in college. Reed’s dad instilled in him an embodied love and care for the spaces and people he lives with, expressed through craft.

Reed is a member of the Weaver’s Guild of MN, and a founding member of a queer-centered intentional community, where they live with their spouse, their four cats, and housemates. They love books about magical libraries, watching reality cooking shows, and dreaming about garden layouts, systems, and tea blends.

Q: Are there stories that came to you while looking through the Art Card bundle that was sent to you?

A: Unfolding pathways, roots, landscapes. Distance and closeness – across time, and geography. Timespans of creative practice, of months feeling like decades. Calling back to ourselves, to our embodiment, to the tactile. Mycelium below the surface.

Q: How has your relationship with these collages changed from first receiving the images, through the process of cutting and gluing, and to final finishing touches?

A: The relationship to empty space evolved over the course of the collages. Density, words, lines, space. I originally resisted the blank cards, choosing instead for one to collage atop an existing postcard, rather than dissembling it. The sharp contrast of new printed paper to what I knew had passed through many hands before it reached mine threw me at first.

Q: Among your creations, which images stand out and why?

A: The “All happiness this day” was one of the hardest for me to cut into – the postcard was from the 1920’s, and was the main card I received that had writing on it – it had already gone through the mail. The final collage it’s in makes my heart happiest. The collage on the existing postcard, with the line “home away from home” feels most aligned to when I was creating it – in a cabin at a state park, celebrating my 5th wedding anniversary with my spouse, crafting by lantern-light.

Q: Is collage similar or different from your regular studio practice?

A: Collage is one element of my regular studio practice, at least for my personal creative practices. I’m primarily (currently) a textile artist – working in wool and thread and fabric. Earlier in my life, I was more of a mixed-media artist, where collage featured more heavily. So now, when I need a creative outlet just for myself, or if I’m trying to think through a project, or feeling, I’ll often turn back towards mixed-media, and collage.

Q: If you could give and/or receive a postcard from anyone living or passed, who would it be and why?

A: My late grandfather. He shaped my current path in beautiful ways that he never knew, and I’d love a chance to send him a postcard and receive one in return.

Return Flights

Mai’s brothers check-in and George follows up. Nina and Tom find Delia’s postcard stash, and their way home. Nora knows her way around town now. Peace is in practice, not perfect circumstances, says Mrs. Hanabusa.

Careful block letters adorned the outside of a #10 envelope. George recognized Jack’s handwriting. Precise, old-fashioned, like an architect from a bygone era. Inside, George found a letter to addressed to him, and a long list of books Jack had read. Not just titles, but notes.

The Hidden Life of Trees – I like how roots connect underground.

The Mapmakers – Bird migrations mapped with ocean currents.

A Sand County Almanac – The geese made me cry.

George sat at his kitchen table, poured over the letter twice, then kept going back to it in mild wonder. The boy was thirteen. Reading natural philosophy at a level twice his age and writing elegant, matter-of-fact prose.

George now had a collection of postcards just for his grandson. He kept an eye out for anything inspired by books, libraries, explorers, architecture, and history. But today, he had a different one in mind.

Jack – Your list made my week! You remind me why books matter. Keep reading, all of life is in there. – Grandpa

George bundled up and trudged to the mailbox in the extremely cold and icy January morning. Stood there a moment, breath visible in the air, so proud of a thirteen-year-old boy who cried over geese.

The phone rang Saturday afternoon. It was Mai.

“Dad? You busy?”

“Never too busy. What’s up?”

“So—weird thing. I heard from both Derek and Marcus this week, within a day of each other.”

George set down his coffee. Mai’s brothers were also adopted from the chaos in Laos, but by different families. Mai didn’t know or remember much as a child. They’d reconnected as young adults as they discovered their shared histories. George had met Mai’s brothers only three times, at each of their weddings. Derek, the oldest, spent his early years in an orphanage before his adoption. He now runs a tech business in Palo Alto. Marcus, the youngest, grew up in a musical family and plays professional brass in traveling shows.

“That’s wonderful. Everything okay?”

“Yeah, they’re fine. Both texted out of the blue. Derek asked about the kids, Marcus asked about you. I think they’re feeling their age,” Mai chuckled.

After they hung up, George sat at his table looking at his postcard stacks. He found a San Francisco classic for Derek, and an old club card from Illinois for Marcus. Relics from a jazzier time. Same short notes to both of them.

Mai says you’re doing well. Glad to hear it! – George

Nina loaded into her car early Sunday morning. Coffee in a thermos, bag full of stuff, and Mrs. Hanabusa’s advice in her head. Leave room. Her mind drifted for most of the drive, watching the sunrise over the desert and mountains to the East. She took the old road through Florence for just that reason.

Nina climbed the stairs in the worn, beige apartment complex, and knocked.

Tom opened the door looking nervous. “Hi. Come in.”

Nina noticed immediately, he was making an effort. Coffee brewing, store-bought pastries on a plate, magazines and mail in piles recently cleared from the couch. Seemed like he intended to inhabit the place, not just occupy space.

The talk was halted at first, then easier. Nina found it so strange that she grew up with the man and knew him not at all.

“I brought something,” Nina said. She pulled out all the postcards he’d sent over the years, a large batch that bulged at the seams of a padded envelope. Airport terminals, layover cities, all those airplanes. The last year had revealed so much, including the way her father had actually stayed connected in a quiet (and still insufficient) way.

“I kept them.”

“I didn’t know if you would. You weren’t always into them like we were.”

“I wasn’t. I didn’t even remember that I saved them. Found this stash looking through a bunch of old boxes, now that I know what to look for. Dad, I never made the connection before now.”

Tom smiled sheepishly, stood, went to his bedroom, came back with a shoebox full of postcards from Delia, dozens of them, saved over their entire marriage. Travel postcards from trips they’d taken together. Funny ones he’d sent her from far away places, anniversary cards.

“I couldn’t throw them away,” he said. “But I couldn’t look at them either.”

Nina picked up one after the other to read the backs. Her mother’s handwriting, cheerful, full of small news from home.

“She loved you.”

“I loved her, too, and I love you.”

They sat with the postcards spread out between them, talking about travel and their family trips together. Tom unearthed the ones Nina herself sent home from the summer she spent in France. Both were careful to keep his collection from Delia separate from the ones Nina brought. They were both still sorting through the imperfect evidence of what had been.

“Next time,” Nina promised as she left. They hugged briefly, and she hopped in the car for the drive home on the freeway with the sunset to her right.

Monday, Nina found Mrs. Hanabusa in her usual spot, the late afternoon light turning everything gold.

“How was your visit?” Mrs. Hanabusa asked without looking up.

“Good. Hard. Both.”

“That’s how it goes.”

Nina found herself marveling, again. Mrs. H’s daily practices, the flower arranging, carefully selecting which sentiments to include and which to set aside. She seemed to belong more to the glow than the room, now.

“How did you learn to be at peace in the world?”

Mrs. Hanabusa smiled slightly. “Well, I needed it and then I experienced it once or twice. It felt good, and now I have practiced enough. Every day. Some days better than others.”

Peace wasn’t a state achieved once and held static forever. It was active, chosen, renewed daily through small deliberate gestures.

“You’re practicing, too, but you don’t call it that yet. It’s nicer when you know.”

Nina thought about the drive to Tempe, the decision to keep the postcards, the inclination to let her father try, and the fear he’ll fly away again. It was not easy, definitely practice. Also, yes… nice.

Nora’s cards came less frequently through the spring. Nina recognized the sacred cycle of becoming and belonging. Nora had less to say about longing, more about the daily goings-on. She was living in Taiwan.

Hiked Taroko Gorge with work friends. Mountains are unreal—marble cliffs, jade rivers. Think of you, often. –N

Nina pulled out a postcards of Saguaro at sunset awash with a super bloom of springtime flowers. She wrote her response, but didn’t rush it. Set it on her desk, next to the others ready to go out. There was time. Their lives would keep coming and going in a different rhythm now, and that was enough.

Though our holiday story series stops here, we hope you stay in touch!
Subscribe to get a message about a postcard every Wednesday.
Also, love is in the air! Next month rare embroideries.

Limited edition Cardinal on a Cactus postcards available at Tempe Yarn & Fabric and online.

Landing Patterns

Tom finally touches grass, and Lily paints impossible cats.

Tom’s rental car idled at a red light on University, three blocks from his apartment. He’d made it through Sky Harbor quickly, drove straight here without stopping for groceries or coffee or errands. Just land and figure out what’s next, he thought.

The apartment was small, on the second floor of a stucco complex built in the eighties. View of the parking lot. He’d signed the lease abruptly after Delia died. Left the house for Nina to handle. Since then—hotel rooms in Atlanta, crew bunks in Singapore, a fishing boat off Catalina.

He parked, climbed the stairs, unlocked the door to recycled air and silence, flipped through the mail piled on the counter from the last time he was here. He missed the last local election. There was a party in a park nearby. A local group is replacing trees that were damaged in the last freak storm.

He set his bag down, pulled out his phone, texted Nina before he could reconsider.

I’m in Tempe. Can we meet? That coffee shop you like?

Three dots appeared. Disappeared. Appeared again.

Yup, be up there tomorrow. 10am.

Tom exhaled. Opened the refrigerator, stared at nothing for a moment, and closed it. He sat on the couch, looked at the unpacked boxes, looked at the random furniture. Looked at his hands, and thought, tomorrow. Then he grabbed his keys to run out for a beer and a burrito.

At the coffee shop, Tom arrived early, ordered coffee he didn’t drink, watched the door. Nina came in exactly at ten. Saw him, hesitated, turned toward the line, but walked over to her dad instead.

“Hi.”

“Hi.”

Nina set her keys on the table and went to get her drink. A few minutes to breathe and focus while she waited in line. He was actually here. Wow.

Back at the table, Tom tried to start, stopped, and started again. Exasperated, he whispered a groan. “How do people do this?”

“Well, you always asked Mom.”

“Truth,” he conceded. “I keep getting on planes. Keep going up. Can’t figure out how to stay down.”

Nina’s face was careful, neutral. “I know. You send postcards.”

“Lonely postcards.”

“I like them.” She paused, a little surprised herself.

“This woman I know at work told me about her father. He came back from the internment camps different. Couldn’t talk about what he’d lost. Just went quiet. Disappeared into himself even when he was sitting right there.”

Tom blinked at her, stunned by the comparison. “I’m not—”

“I know you’re not. But you get away from a lot up there.”

Tom set his coffee down. “Look… I’m trying… to be present… more.”

“Okay.” Nina’s hands tightened around her cup.

“Let me know when you’re back, next,” she said slowly. “We could meet at your place. Maybe make it feel like home.”

“Sure. that’s good. It doesn’t feel like anything right now.”

They finished their coffee, scooted out of the booth, and hugged. Nina picked up her keys.

Tom drove back to the apartment. Stood in the doorway looking at the accumulation of a life he’d been avoiding.

He started with the kitchen. Unpacked Delia’s dishes, the set they’d used for at least thirty years. Put them in the cabinets. Drove to the grocery store, bought coffee and bread and eggs. Real food that would probably rot. Fine, that might actually be normal. Small steps. He’d try again tomorrow.

The knock came mid-morning. George opened the door to find Lily holding a canvas bag, Mai standing behind her with a patient smile.

Lily marched into the foyer, serious. “I brought MY paints.”

“She wanted to paint, here, with you,” Mai said.

“CATS! We want to paint cats,” she announced.

“Well then.” George stepped aside. “Come in.”

They set up at the kitchen table—Jennie’s old watercolor set now showing signs of use again. Lily arranged her brushes with care, filled a bowl with water, selected paper from the pad.

“Could you get the big book, Grandpa?” Lily asked.

George knew exactly the one she wanted. Large and heavy, and art book with full color illustrations. Yes, cats, and many more species with great examples of all variety to try one’s hand.

George pulled his chair to face the window. Lily pulled hers beside his. They worked together, silently, side by side. Lily’s brush moved in quick confident patterns. Bold strokes, loose shapes that captured moments more than detail.

George surprised himself by drawing with a sharp graphite pencil. His hands remembered motions he hadn’t used in years. Careful lines, patient shading, the disciplined attention that both he and Jennie loved.

Lily finished first. Held up her painting. “It’s not exactly right.”

“Tell me more…”

“The shape isn’t right. The lines don’t add up. It doesn’t look like a real cat.”

“Artists see differently than scientists,” George said. “Scientists measure. Artists feel. Both ways matter. Your colors are very bold.”

Lily considered this. Looked at his drawing, and said confident,”Yours is the scientist way.”

“Can I keep yours?”

“If I can keep yours.”

“Deal.”

Mai came back an hour later. Lily packed her supplies, carefully laying her paintings on the countertop to dry. At the door, she hugged George—quick, unselfconscious, generous.

After they left, George found a frame in the closet and mounted the entirely impossible animal—calm, loose, joyful. Hung it where he’d see it every morning.

The postcard arrived in Tucson ten days after Nora mailed it. Nina turned it over. Nora’s handwriting, smaller now, more compact.

Lunar New Year, red lanterns everywhere. The city transforms—fireworks, night markets, families. The work is good, the project is extending. Solitude still a gift.—N

Nina read it twice. Carried it inside. Pinned it to her wall beside the others. Seven postcards now, creating their own pattern. Different textiles, different messages, her same friend after all this time. She pulled out her phone, typed a response.

Got your latest. Glad you’re staying. Take your time.

Solo Travelers

Each travel alone, except the air they share. Nora is happy going solo, and Tom is somewhere in between.

The teahouse was tucked next to a dumpling shop on a narrow lane in Da’an District. Nora walked past it three times before noticing the English sign: Tea by Appointment Only.

Inside, a woman near seventy arranged porcelain cups on a low table. She glanced up, assessed Nora with a single look, and gestured to the cushion.

“First time?”

“First time for tea ceremony,” Nora said. “Not first time feeling lost.”

The woman smiled. Poured water over the leaves. The scent rose—something green and grassy, nothing like the black tea Nora’s grandmother used to brew.

“Lost is good,” the woman said. “A reason to pay attention.”

Nora’s colleague Mei-Ling had taken pity after watching Nora eat lunch alone for the third week running. “You need to get out,” Mei-Ling had said. “Explore. Be alone in a place that’s not your apartment.”

So here she was. Alone. Not lonely.

Her phone buzzed. A text from Nina. Nora silenced it without reading.

The tea was bitter, then sweet. She drank slowly.

“You travel alone?” the woman asked.

“Always.”

Nora had spent years cultivating solitude—long drives through Arizona backcountry, dawn hikes in Sabino Canyon, evenings on her balcony with no one talking. She chose the Taipei assignment partly for the chance to be anonymous and untethered.

The woman poured another cup. “Tourists look for what they expect to see. Solo travelers find who is actually there, including themselves.”

Nora thought about the next postcard to Nina. She wanted to tell her about the teahouse, the silence, the strange comfort of being somewhere no one knew her name.

It’s lovely to be solo in a strange land. Watching without explaining. Moving without negotiating. I sometimes forget who I am at home.

She finished her tea, bowed to the woman, stepped back into the crowded street feeling lighter than she had in months.

Tom stood on the deck of a fishing charter near Catalina, watching the captain clean yellowtail in the afternoon sun. He worked the knife along the spine with practiced efficiency, lifting the skin and scattering ribbons of bronze scales across the wet deck.

Tom was at sea three days, paid in full. His time between flights was long enough, he could have gone to Phoenix to check on the empty apartment. Or driven the two hours to Tucson to talk to Nina. Instead, he’d gone straight from the airport to the marina.

The ocean felt safer to Tom. He knew what he was dealing with—wind, current, the pull of the moon. On land, everything felt unmoored and awash in silence. The apartment with no one else there. Nina’s careful, measured heartache. The desperate life he’d abandoned in favor of flight schedules and hotel rooms.

The captain looked up. “You alright, man?”

“Fine.”

“You don’t look fine. You thinking about jumping?”

Tom laughed, the gallows humor helped. “Not far enough down.”

The captain went back to his work. Tom watched the horizon. His daughter was not far away. Working at the hospice. Taking care of people the way she’d taken care of her mother. While he was gone somewhere over the Pacific.

Tom didn’t make it to Jennie’s funeral. Delia was still sick and he had a flight schedule to keep. George hadn’t said much.

When Delia died two months later, George drove from Minnesota. Stayed ten days. Made coffee, answered the phone, helped with plans, and stood beside Tom at the service. Then, George drove back alone. Tom couldn’t make himself useful like that to anybody. Couldn’t even make himself stay.

A raven landed on the railing, tilted its head.

“Where’d you come from?” Tom asked.

The raven looked at Tom, croaked once, deep in its throat.

Suddenly the words came to him. He didn’t have a pen or a postcard handy, but finally he had something to say.

Flying solo is for the birds.

The raven lifted off, circled once, flew toward shore. Tom watched until it disappeared, then looked at his phone. He could get out of LA tonight, and rework his schedule from Phoenix next week. Enough time to get to Tucson and back, and to try.

The envelope arrived among the usual stack. Tom’s cramped handwriting unmistakable on the address. George carried it inside, set it on the kitchen table, made coffee before opening it.

Inside, a single sheet torn from a legal pad, Tom’s words filling margin to margin. George read it twice.

George—
Sorry it’s been so long. Don’t know how to say what needs to get out.

Been working more flights than I should. Phoenix to anywhere. Hotel rooms are easier. Nina barely talks to me. Can’t blame her.

You drove all the way to Delia’s funeral. Made everything possible. I should’ve done the same for you and Jennie. Told myself it was work. We both know better. You’ve always been better at this life.

I’m sorry. Thank you. Stay warm, and let’s talk soon.
—Tom

Tom was a restless kid — climbing trees, running off, coming home with scraped knees. George stayed close, watched birds, kept track of his brother.

After Jennie died, Tom just wasn’t around. George wanted to be angry but didn’t have the strength. Grief made him numb for awhile. Now, he was just glad to have his brother back, or at least a longer letter.

Mrs. Hanabusa sat by her window in the common room, as she often did. Hands folded in her lap. Face turned toward the light. Eyes resting gently on the flowering hibiscus outside.

Nina paused in the hallway, watching.

How did she keep such a calm reserve? After the camps, after losing everything, seeing your family degraded. How did she maintain that peace?

She would probably credit her mother, her grandmothers, and their extended friends and family. All gone, except her sister. How does she do it, still?

Mrs. Hanabusa turned her head slightly and smiled.

Nina smiled back, and walked on.

The story above is fiction, but the new Postcard People feature is real life! Meet Christine N. from Switzerland, who posts about her grandmother’s collection.

The Posted Past

We trade loneliness for connection, one postcard at a time

Skip to content ↓