Sixty-Two Postcards

Since my first trip abroad in 1994, I've sent a postcard to myself from every place I've visited. Sixty-two so far. They live in a shoebox in my closet.

Last night I read through all of them. A postcard from a ferry in Greece: "The water is a color I didn't know existed." From a tiny town in Mexico: "A woman taught me to make tortillas and laughed at all of mine." From Iceland: "It is 11 p.m. and the sun refuses to set. Neither do I." From my first visit to my brother in Denver: "His dog is enormous."

Most of them are a little silly. All of them are happy. Reading them was like visiting twenty-five years of my own life, one sunny moment at a time.

I'm planning trip number sixty-three already. I bought the stamps first.