Slowness – Page 2 – Noelle Poulson

If I’m going to be talking about slowness on this site, I will have to start with one of my favourite slow things of all time: postcards.

I love postcards.

I love sending them. I love receiving them. I love that they take so long to get where they are going that you forget you sent them in the first place. I love that they were there with the writer, that they made a journey to get to the reader, and that they show signs of adventures they can never tell anyone about. I just love them.

I also love that everything about the postcard process is slow.

I deliberate endlessly over cards, making sure to get one that I think the person receiving it will appreciate. I take some time to think about that person, what they find interesting, what they enjoy doing, and of the stories or experiences from my trip that would appeal most to them. I write deliberately and use up every inch of the card (often forgetting room for stamps and addresses). And I always send a little wish when I drop it into the post box that it survives the journey (mostly intact) and gets there eventually, even though I know it can sometimes take months to arrive.

A Postcard a Day

When I was travelling in Southeast Asia a couple of years ago, I decided to take on a postcard project – one postcard a day, every day, for 30 days. Because I like the idea that the card was actually there with the person writing it (that it smells all the smells, sees all the sights and hears all the sounds around it while it is being written on), I thought of taking a photo of the card in the place I wrote it, so that, along with the card and my message, the recipient could get a little taste of the experience it went through as well.

Here’s what some of them looked like: Continue reading →

In my last post (aka my first post), I said I didn’t know what I wanted to talk about on this blog.

That is total bollocks.

I totally know what I want to write about.

I got nervous that you as readers might not be into it, so I thought I had to change it up and to make it sound appealing somehow. Blogging lesson #1 learned: this is a place for me to talk about my passions with my voice. It might be scary to put myself out there and it might be appealing to try and emulate the voices of all the incredible bloggers who are writing already, but, terrifying as it is, this is the place where I get to share my words.

So here’s what I want to talk about:

– When I was walking around London for my most recent project, I saw a lot of parallels between the way I approached my walks and the way I *wish* I approached my life. I learned some great lessons from it that I am challenging myself to apply, and I thought perhaps those things might be helpful to share with other people. I can guarantee I will suck at accomplishing these things most of the time, but it’s all in the trying and laughing about it, right?

– I love to travel and I love to read travel blogs, but I think one essential aspect of travel gets overlooked a lot: walking. I love walking. It is the best way to get to know a place. It is the only way you can get into some areas (often the best places), and it is the best way to get a feel for the pace of wherever you are exploring. So I will definitely be talking about walking and sharing stories from the walks I go on.

– Slowness. It’s hugely important and yet it is insanely hard to find in our culture. I learned this many times over on my walks. Taking time to stop, to appreciate, to be aware, to just be, makes a remarkable difference to my outlook and resilience. Life is hard. Travel is hard. Being an expat is hard. But when I stop to look around and see that I am actually on an amazing adventure, it changes my perspective and highlights what really matters: enjoying it along the way.

And there you have it. That’s what this blog is all about for me.

Phew. That feels more like it!