When I was around 9 years old, I discovered the fascinating world of correspondence. At that time, it was trendy to collect “hojitas de cambiar” which were essentially collections of writing sets (a sheet of paper plus an envelope) and note sheets of various sizes. But the fun part of these collections was that they had all kinds of designs.
If you visited any schoolyard during break time, you wouldn't find a group of girls playing or chatting; you would find a market in the purest style of Wall Street: buying and selling decorated envelopes and paper sets, exchanges of stationery collections, and friendship-based emotional blackmail for the most exotic item. Women of my generation have learned to navigate the adult world of finances thanks to that early training in those ruthless markets during recess; certainly not thanks to the non-existent finance classes in schools curriculums.
Once you had your cool collection of “hojitas”, we used them to write to friends and cousins. Letters between classmates were common, but I always found exciting to write and receive letters from friends from summer camps or relatives who lived in other cities. It was a hopeful process: you hoped your letter would arrive, you hoped that the recipient would respond. It was a beautiful exercise in patience.
Then came the Internet with its instant messaging, mobile phones with their texts, and social networks with their promise of connecting people. Strangely enough, I find that the easiest communication is, the shallower the messages are. As in any other field, we develop wonderful technological resources to be more efficient and, in return, what we do is become lazy (do not get me started on escalators).
Despite my fascination with the world of correspondence, I had never created an audiovisual letter, let alone for a stranger. This challenge came to me during the Nothing Happens in this film workshop, and it was a nice project to carry out as it felt familiar and new at the same time.
So, to summarize the story, one day I received a letter from a stranger, and I answered.
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