Letters Outside the Box

The first letter to start off the pen pal relationship.

A few weeks ago I got an interesting letter from LWA member David Solomon. He wrote to us about how he became pen pals with a friend of a friend, who he didn't know, and how it turned into an amazing pen pal relationship.

At first, they mailed letters conventionally through USPS, but then David thought of another way to deliver letters to his new pen pal Tiffany.

Voice recorder with an audio letter tape & the box it came in that Tiffany left under David's car

Drop locations, scavenger hunts, audio letters - without even thinking about it, they were expanding what their personal correspondence could be. Here is an excerpt from David's letter explaining how this started:

She was also a student at FSU. In the Fall, I sent her a short letter telling her to go to the campus library and go to a certain floor and look for a certain book and flip to a certain page. In this book was another book she was to go to. And so on until she ended up at the National Geographic section of the library to find a handmade booklet made for her including random things such as a play I wrote for her, a to-do list, recommended reading, a poem, etc. This started our new correspondence via a drop spot in the library.

We walked the same paths, but never saw each other, which added some excitement and intimacy to our relationship. Two years later and we are still friends. In fact, I consider her my best friend...and yet, we have spent no time in the other's presence.
        - Personal correspondence with David Solomon

A photo Tiffany took of herself reading the zine David made her, which was the final object of the scavenger hunt he sent her on in the library. She's reading it right where she found it.

I think this speaks volumes of how intimate letter writing and the pen pal relationship can be. This also is a great example of how letter writing can be expanded upon, outside of the realm of envelopes, or even paper. Perhaps this will give Initiative Response participants some ideas for their "Out of the Box" tasks?

Thank you to David and Tiffany for allowing me to share their story with fellow LWAers.

-Kathy

P.S. David has been recording his astounding outgoing mail on his blog Because I Really Felt It. I was extra impressed by his "Book as Envelope" mailing.

-Donovan

Comments

[Limner]

Now I'm all teary. Such a sweet, creative way to start a friendship. I had dreams of leaving letters in books at Barnes & Noble, but chickened out. :)

This story deserves to be on the news. :)

Thanks for making my day smilier.

[Lina Kewas]

Love this story and the photo. I love writing letters and have two penpals overseas which might make it a bit hard to try this sort of thing but I'm going try it. Keep it up David and Tiffany and may you both have many years of wonderful letter writing and adventures. Just beautiful.