Long before our passports were peppered with official stamps from different countries, signifying our arrival and departure from each and thereby serving as proof for ourselves and for others that we ventured to a place that isn’t our home base, another breed of stamps ruled the roost – postage stamps.

A hobby lost to digital writing

Alas, we don’t send handwritten letters or postcards as often anymore, else if the volume of messages that are sent via online chat tools (gosh I sound like a Boomer!) today are to be mirrored in writing, our stamp albums would be in the hundreds! I have fond memories of gently peeling delicate stamps – of different shapes, textures, colours and images – off of paper envelopes that had been left to soak in a dish of water overnight, my tongue sticking out from between pursed lips – a telltale sign of concentration. Back then, it was merely a hobby, something I carried forward from my mum’s collection of umpteen stamps and coins from across the world.

Never did I stop to think of the story behind each stamp. Where did it come from? Who imagined its shape and size, who decided what colours and outlines would grace its paper facade? What letters did they accompany? Did the letters bear good news, or bad? How many hands exchanged the stamp before it reached me? And in that sense, how many people have I unknowingly communicated with in some small, passing way?

I love the rebelliousness of snail mail, and I love anything that can arrive with a postage stamp. There’s something about that person’s breath and hands on the letter.

Diane Lane

How postage stamps take us to faraway lands

I know that there are collectors aplenty, people who live and breathe philately, ones who scour their circles like treasure hunters looking for that erroneously printed stamp, the one that was withdrawn from circulation, the one that’s worth over tens of thousands of dollars.

But I’m here as a commoner, someone who spent a good part of her tween years swapping stamps at the back of the classroom for ones she didn’t have or for ones that caught her eye, unaware of their true value or even lack of. I’m also here as a modest traveller who is now able to appreciate every avenue to explore the world, including stamps that once occupied the corner of an envelope as we often occupy the window seat of a bus, a train or an aeroplane.

Many countries whose stamps we may possess, we probably haven’t physically explored yet. Still, these little paper squares, rectangles, and even triangles – accompaniments of joyous news or harbingers of ill tidings – can take us deep into the heart of Suriname, talk to us about the public policy of Nepal, walk us through a bevvy of women dressed in traditional Omani garb, lead us by the hand to Queen Tiye’s bust unearthed from what was once the workshop of the celebrated sculptor Thutmose in Egypt and now resting in The Egyptian Museum of Berlin, and even help us celebrate a warm Christmas in Australia.

Postage stamps are windows into different places and times

As we get a better hang of this ‘new normal’, and our wanderer’s feet itch to touch the soil of lands that are anywhere but where we’ve been cooped in for the last few months, these centimetres of parchment are our windows into places on our travel lists, ones we had excitedly marked as a must-see for this year.

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They are reminders of times and persons gone by, of what was once a moment so glorious that it was worth commemorating, even if the commemoration occupied just a tiny corner on an envelope and was discarded in lieu of the envelope’s contents. They teach us to slow down and observe details, and ask questions that every traveller should – where do we come from, where will we go, what will we bring in our wake?

I hope Philately never dies and if its passing is fated, I hope it’s a long drawn-out one. Maybe it’s nostalgia – my waiting impatiently for greeting cards and letters addressed to others in the house to arrive from far-off lands just so that I can peel off the little printed stamps and air-dry them with glee – or maybe goodbyes just aren’t my cup of tea. But I guess this is exactly what travel teaches us – nothing is meant to remain except change.

This too shall pass | این نیز بگذرد‎

Note: The postage stamps are a few from my personal collection. They span two generations and made their way to me from my uncle who handed them to my mum, who in turn introduced me to her stamp album. It’s the only one that remains from a trunk full of stamps, and it’s the closest thing I have to a family heirloom.