I have many friends online and offline. I think that’s one of life’s pleasures – having friends across geographical regions (it’s easier to stay in touch now with technology) and connecting with them.
Dotty’s one of my friends who met me on my blog. Yes, this very blog. I’ve had this blog running for the past 7 years. In the online world, 7 years is one heck of a long time. (I know. I’ve been online for a long time. Shoot me.)
We’ve taken the friendship a step further than most friends – we love doing stuff the classic way.
Remember those days when you were a kid and wrote to penpals overseas using thin blue aerogrammes? (If you don’t know what thin blue aerogrammes are, you must be young. Go ask your elder siblings or your parents.) I had penpals from Ivory Coast. I loved receiving letters from them. They wrote well in English and we’d exchange news of what happened to us in our school lives.
Nothing beats the excitement of seeing the postman whiz around to our white and yellow gate, honk his motorbike and pass me the bunch of letters, one of which was inevitably the blue overseas letter. I’d disappear into my room to rip it open and read (and re-read) each line.
Yesterday, the same sliver of thrill coursed through me when I got back to the office to find a sizable parcel waiting for me!
Oooh….in a world of email, virtual cards and virtual hugs, nothing absofreakinglutely nothing beats the feeling of a gift that you can hold in your hands!
Dotty has always put details first and that is why receiving a letter (a real one, OK, in true penmanship style) from her is always a pleasure. The stationery she writes on is as precious as the words on the paper. Have you ever wondered what special is? Special is when someone takes the time and effort to write a letter on beautiful, thick writing paper. Special is when words are written gorgeously (for people who learnt cursive writing in school).
Then the gifts of food and tea.
Homemade chocolate chip cookies rich with butter and nuts.
Premium Rabea tea from Jeddah (dear Dotty had just returned from there). She’s sent me Rabea tea before and it is a tea that’s low on tannic taste (which is great for plenty of longtime brewing and dunkings).
I felt that Raya came early for me! 😉 Drinking tea while munching on choc chip cookies over the 4-day weekend.
Gorgeous!
Thanks Dotty! Terima kasih my friend!
Hi there, Maya, how have you been? It’s been some time since I visited. LOL… a lot of happenings in my life and they are not good. *sigh* What to do, life is a bitch!
Anyway, I used to have penpals like you mentioned. In fact, I have loads of em, locals and overseas alike. I remembered how I I waited for postmen to arrive with letters from my penpals. I even checked the mailbox every day when i return from school. Unfortunately for me, my mum does not respect my privacy when I was a little girl. She open my letters, sniffing around for some boyfriends and secrets that i would not tell her or my dad… so I stopped writing to my penpals. 🙁
Thank God for the net though… I may not be able to touch or smell letters with scented envelopes or collect exotic stamps, but I gained a lot of friends who have many things in common with me despite of the geographical borders. 😀
Hi clef: Yah, those were the days huh. My mom used to do the same with my letters too! I was so mad at one time. But it only happened rarely so I was pretty much OK. Anyway I used to write such stuff that mom wouldn’t find interesting – like how I loved Madonna’s songs, how I hated my Maths, how boring school was. There weren’t any love letters haha . I used to hang on the phone for hours with a boy so mom knew it was a guy from school, hence no love letters. I love the Net too but you know, nothing beats a real letter, signed and stamped. Hope things go better from this month onwards. Sending love your way 😉