Seven months ago, my dear friend Jenn launched a mail club — The Prose & Post Society. I might not have been the first person to subscribe, but I was right there in the beginning.

Why?

Because I know Jenn. I’ve known her for 40 years. I know her love of art and words and beautiful imagery.

And, I love receiving meaningful mail. I wrote bundles of letters as a kid to a friend who moved to California and to a couple of my cousins. It’s what we did back then…before email and texting and technology that sped up communications and disrupted the desire to write letters and cards.

When she posted a teaser for the March theme of trains, I swooned. In her post, there was a ticket to Fort Ticonderoga, and I commented, “One ticket to Fort Ticonderoga, please.” So, when I opened this month’s envelope and held the yellow ticket in my hands, I was delighted and immediately transported to another time and place. Fort Ticonderoga in the Adirondacks of New York was built by the French in the mid-18th century. It played a strategic role in several wars.

I’ve never been there. I know the Ticonderoga name because of the fort (thank you to my American history teachers over the years) and Ticonderoga pencils. Yep – those beautiful yellow and green #2 pencils we all know and love. I prefer writing with a real pencil to just about any other writing implement. And, Ticonderoga pencils are simply perfection.

Then, there’s the beauty of trains. I’m a boy mom (granted, he’s 23 now). Trains were central to his childhood. We rode trains whenever we could. A passenger train in Alaska and Yukon Territory, the miniature trains at every zoo we visited, the dinky train at the fair. It didn’t matter – a train was a train was a train. My father built him a train table he could stand in the middle of for his Lionel set. One particular birthday party was aboard Frisco Locomotive No. 4524 at the Railroad History Museum at Grant Beach Park. Those sweet gentlemen fudged their calendar to allow for his party on the first weekend of November when the museum actually closed at the end of October.

Jenn’s company name — Six-Penny Stamp — is an homage to the price of a postage stamp in 1968, the year Jenn and I were born. Our birthdays are four days apart. I’ve always thought that was special. I treasure my high school yearbooks with her notes in exquisite handwriting. Several years ago, she sold jewelry pendants of quotes created in her calligraphy. I love each of them and always receive compliments when I wear them.

Every month, I savor the moments of opening each piece of the carefully curated pieces. I’ve created a space on the wall of my kitchen to rotate out the art pieces so I can admire and remember.

You, too, might just enjoy these special moments.

P.S. Compare “Serendipity” on my blog header to Jenn’s beautiful handwriting. Yes, several years ago, I asked her to simply write Serendipity for me so I could use it on my blog.