Handmade Heron Postcard 1988

Ballpoint Pens and Marker on Postcard. © by O. Douglas Jennings. All rights Reserved.

 

Finding one of the post cards in a sewing book of hers as I was organizing the family bookshelf now nearly a quarter-century later, I am struck by the image on the card I plucked from pages of the book as if from an ancient hourly-wage time clock. It shows a sketch of a white heron gliding over a marshy lake. It's shape is reflected in the water. I must have drawn it from a magazine photo.

The lines are in ball-point pen, still a favorite medium of mine. The colors from felt-tip markers --including some highlighter markers-- depict a rosy sky reflected in the water. Because it has been sealed and pressed in a book over the years, the colors have stayed bright. A post mark "T8" is stamped in green ink and another smudgy stamp I can't read in purple interrupts the pristine quality of the art. Not that the art is carefully rendered. It was quickly done. I suspect I wanted to make sure it went out with the day's mail.

We were newly engaged to be married that Spring when she took a job as an in-home caregiver to her pastor's ailing mother. It was 14 hours away by car. We would be apart for the entire Summer and part of the Fall except for the one time I could make the trip to see her. So besides letters I sent handmade postcards to her nearly every day.

In the lower left corner of the card below the heron's airborne feet is some Farsi script, "Doostet daram, Chacha", which is "I love you, Chacha". I'm not sure I could remember how to scribe that now without a reference. My ability to speak Farsi is so poor, much less my being able to write it. On the other side's lower corner is my name "Doug" in Farsi. Because of the phonetic structure of the alphabet it is literally pronounced "Dahg". That is the easiest way for Middle Easterners to say my name.

On the message and address side, I have written, somewhat sappily, "Hello my darling beloved! I am thinking of you!" with a heart and a smiley face. I would normally write short comments on a postcard if it was mailed a day or so within the time I had also mailed a letter.

I set the card on my desk as I finish putting the books in their proper places on the shelves. When she returns from her errands, I will show her what I found.