Bonus: The Postcard Club on Substack

From uncomfortable questions to finding our people.

I joined Substack to listen to the clicky sound of my fingertips typing on a keyboard, and I am now part of an epic international postcard chain. Nay, a movement!

Music scratches, everything stops, camera zooming in on me.

You might be wondering: how did I get here?

Writing about my literal life journeys. - Me, haphazardly rolling off the sofa: “I like to leave dangerously!”

Last year,

Gastroillogica

and I, were in Italy at our Homestead, as she calls it, surrounded by trees and memories. She, too, has shown signs of migration from very early days. She told me about Substack and I thought this would be a fun side quest. I missed writing, after ‘Bring your own lipstick’ and its bittersweet memories.

“We are not native but we’ve dispersed well on our own across the ocean.” (

Jess Pan

)

Living in Melbourne made me very aware of the peculiarity of my expat status. I never felt like an outsider because I looked like most people here, with my exotic nose and black attire. Did I feel like an outsider anywhere else? Why, of course. In Japan, I could be nothing more than a tourist, and in England, I couldn’t even dress up for an event hoping to blend in. But here, nobody looked at me wondering what my background was. At least until I started talking.

I could only assume that being asked ‘Where are you really from?’ after a glance would spark a fiery hatred in anyone. Especially with the whole side-eye, head-tilt, hand-on-hip thing.

What would be my equivalent of the ‘but really from’ question? What would make me feel small and crowd my thoughts with every little thing that influenced my life journey? What would make me question what brought me there and why?

There it was.

We know where we started and how we got here, but ‘why’ is where improv meets therapy.

The ‘why’ is your literal life journey. It’s the essence of learning about yourself outside your comfort zone. I am from Italy because I was born there, but a part of my soul, a horcrux if you will, is from Japan because that’s where I realised I could, and had to, leave my hometown.

When the title appeared in my thoughts it was a true lightbulb moment. I finally understood that my 40 Facebook friends weren’t the right audience for my Blogspot ramblings. I wasn’t only a millennial mountain-girl trying to do the adulting thing. I was a migrant, and not many people in my life could, or cared to, relate.

On Substack, I quickly realised I was not alone. I found a community of migrants and we all had something in common that many of our dearest friends would never understand.

Ironically, I have more in common with strangers on the other side of the World, than with my childhood friends.

Artistic representation of the postcard movement. Courtesy of Canva PRO.

I related to the many questions we tormented ourselves with. Where is home? Am I bad for leaving? What if I stayed? Does anyone miss me? Am I even funny in English?

Is it where I’m from, that defines who I am, or where do I feel at home?

Here, I write for those who, at least once, felt like life was about zooming out. Those who struggled to answer ‘What’s your background?’ without questioning all their life choices, from culture to geography, from education to career, including virtual backdrop.

And I hope those who did find an answer will hang around and share their experience because we need all the community we can get.

Here are some of my favourite articles about that zero-gravity feeling:

• Belonging of place and belonging of people. A tale about British boxes. (by

  Nadia Meli
  )

• The Paradox of Being Called a ‘Foreigner’ In A Melting-Pot Metropolis (by

  Monica Nastase
  )

• Where Do I Fit In? I’m building a life from a place I didn’t think I’d be. On feeling like an outsider during my 30s (by

  Tiffany Philippou
  )

• Nobody will miss you (by

  Ilaria
  )

• Home is where the heart broke - Pretending to be the cool single girl in a lofty monolocale until I run out of organs to sell (by

  Annexes
  )

• Putting your life in a suitcase. Whatever doesn’t fit is left behind (by

  The Naive Ignorant
  )

• Tūrangawaewae: A place to stand - What does it mean to feel like home? (by

  Kristin Wong
  )

• What is ‘home’? A word everyone can describe, yet no one can find the words for. (by

  Annika
  )

• Instagram vs. Reality - Reflections on life in Napoli after one year abroad (by

  Brenna
  )

• Commemorative T-Shirts: Yearning for the Physical, surrounded by Stuff (by

  Madison Huizinga
  )

• Is it okay to ask someone where they are from? (by

  Jenny Thorburn
  )

• London: why we love it, why we leave it - Please mind the gap, not between train and platform but between reality and dreams (by

  Carmen Luisa
  )

• Revealing the rather withheld phase of moving abroad - The murky waters of expat bureaucracy realms (by

  Fabienne Mannherz
  )

• Being a tourist in my own country - And what NOT to take on a plane! (by

  Debbie
  )

• Expating is hard - but diaspora is harder (by

  Diana Strinati Baur
  )

• Venice Diaries: Better out than in - Abandon all hope, ye who enter here (by

  Tom Fish
  )

• The fresh start fallacy - Wherever you go, there you are (by

  Rosie Spinks
  )

Yeah, but what’s with the postcards? You may ask.

Carmen Luisa

, with her passion for slow living and mindfulness, grew a small community of like-minded people and initiated the first postcard swap. She called it a ‘community postcard surprise’ but intended it to be a rebellious move in our selfish world. And I’ve always liked a rebel. In an attempt to cultivate proactive and genuine human connection, a few of her lucky subscribers received a postcard from Portugal.

Monica Nastase

was among them and she resonated with the idea of analog-human connection so much that she thought to keep the ball rolling.

I was thrilled by the idea of bringing digital connections into real life, and naive enough to trust a stranger with my address. What’s the worst that could happen? Someone from Substack will embark on a 20-plus-hour flight and ring my doorbell for a cup of tea?

Remember when growing up, our parents would let us use the family computer with the caveat we shouldn’t reveal personal details to anyone we met online? Watch us now!

After waiting patiently, because I am so far from everyone else in the World, I am so excited to share my joy with this community through this post: two postcards from Europe have finally reached me! Now, it’s my turn to show off my treasured postcards and continue the tradition.

Beware, it might take a while. Aussie postal problems.

Disclaimer: I still believe that postcards sent to one’s workplace deserve their own circle in hell. Karma hits when the sender comes back to the office and is forced to witness their own smugness. In general, sending a landscape photo via Whatsapp is a great option but not as romantic. And we like our Romantic Wandering.

If you are one of us migrants, or someone who hears the ‘but really from’ question way too often, please introduce yourself in the comments and join the postcard movement.

Let’s find our people, wherever they may be!

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Directly from the archives, please enjoy this authentic photographic evidence:

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Where are you from, and why?