This past weekend, inspired by the wonderful Lea Redmond’s World’s Smallest Post Office, I set up a snail mail letter writing booth at the Contra Costa Vintage Market. I brought paper, stamps, and a vintage typewriter that goes clackety-clack, and invited people to write letters the old-fashioned way.
the Snail Mail booth
a menu of choices, some writing prompts and a QR code for an optional charitable donation
The Contra Costa Vintage Market happens on the second Sunday of each month in downtown Lafayette (the next one is on December 13th) and when I arrived, the place had been completely transformed by stalls of vintage wares. The Acalanes High Jazz Band was playing, dressed to the nines in suits and dapper hats, and there was a vintage VW bus set up as a Photo Booth. There were all sorts of people at the market, and I got lots of questions from curious passersby. People were often drawn in by the vintage typewriter, and it was a nice bridge between older and younger people at the market. It sparked quite a few conversations, between older folks (like me!) who remember what the world was like before digital technology, and younger people who often had never seen a typewriter before, and were curious to try one out. I brought a few other vintage letter-writing tools, as well, including a quill pen, invisible ink, and a wax seal, thinking no one would’ve used those before, but I was wrong. I met a man who learned to write with a quill pen as a kid in Pakistan, and he told me that the metal nib on a quill pen learns your handwriting over time as the metal gets worn down, and each pen is unique to the person who uses it.
The Snail Mail booth had the typewriter and a small stationary cupboard set up on a beer garden table with a bench, and I invited people to sit down and play. The bench was great, because several people could sit at the same time. Using a typewriter (or a quill pen) is slow work, and it led to a lot of lovely conversations while people wrote their letters. The time it took really helped people slow down and engage with each other and the tactile experience of writing. Everyone made mistakes, as well, and it just gave the letters more charm and personality. The letters were as diverse as the people who wrote them, and they included a very sweet letter to Santa, a letter written by a girl to her future self, the lines of a song a woman’s grandmother sang to her that she wanted to put up in her baby’s nursery, and letters to far away friends. I love that a batch of letters are headed out into the world as a result of this project.
This project wasn’t for everyone, but for the people who tried it, it seemed meaningful. One young woman said she was feeling really anxious that day, and sitting down to write a letter to a friend really helped. It sparked some lovely conversations as well, about life, and technology and even though It seemed like such a simple idea it really went to some interesting places. I am curious to try it again and see where it leads!
