I just had my first international sale on Etsy !
Someone in Japan has bought Pearly Pink Porcelain Earrings.
An exciting milestone for my Etsy shop!
As I prepare to ship the items to my new customer far away, memories come up from the deep.
Years ago, I had a pen pal in Japan.
Back then, my parents subscribed to a newspaper called The Christian Science Monitor which covered world wide news and had a Home Forum page with a pen pal column.
A person could write in and give a description of themselves and ask for pen pals, or answer one of the letters already published.
It was another world. Almost another Universe it seems. Some other lifetime somewhere.
If someone wrote in that she was a thirteen year old girl in Japan,,, she WAS a thirteen year old girl in Japan.
And there was no reason to doubt it.
I do not want to turn the clock back.
I love all these technological advances.
Someone in Japan can look at my shop on Etsy in the middle of the night and in the morning I have a message on my computer that she wants to buy a pair of earrings.
We used to send special airmail paper letters that took a couple of weeks to arrive.
No, I don’t want to return to those days.
But with all the technological progress, we seem to have accepted an almost equal regression in behavior.
The pen pal column disappeared decades ago. Long before the internet arrived.
Today we collect our “pen pals” online but we must be very careful.
This sale has reminded me of that safer more innocent time.
Will we ever be able to trust like that again?
I must not think about it any longer.
