Pen Pals

I just finished reading The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows. It is written in letter form and details the correspondance between a single writer and a group on the Chanel Islands. A Guernsey farmer, Dawsey Adams, finds a single female writer's name in a used book and starts up a correspondence. Their relationship widens to include other neighbors on Guernsey and detail the war and the German occupation. The letters are a little disjointed and sometimes jump from one random incident to another but I liked the overall rhythm of the book. The characters are like-able and endearing.

I think mostly I liked it because I just like the idea of pen pals in general. When I was around seven years old, I flew to Houston to visit my cousins with my Mom and brothers. I was the oldest child and had to sit in a seat a few rows away from them. I somehow befriended an older woman who was sitting next to me and convinced her that she wanted to be my pen pal. Her name was Pauline and she wrote to me for years. She even had a relative in Utah drive a doll to my house on Christmas day one year. I'm not sure if she passed away or what happened but eventually the letters stopped. It is still a fond memory for me. What a lovely person to write to a strange little girl she met once on a plane. I also kept up correspondence with my Great Aunt Kate. She used to send me wonderful letters for years and years.When I was doing my internship in London during college, I couldn't afford to call home very often so I sent LONG LONG emails to all my friends and family. I sent a bunch of postcards to Two Fish (who I was not dating at the time) and his roommates. I wish we still had them! I think I've always just loved to get mail. Maybe that is why I like blogging. It feels sort of like writing letters to pen pals who send back little comments. Much more fun than journaling.